The Last Great Battle
by Sakrea
Summary: During The Last Great Battle, they were lost to the depths of space. Nearly 500 years later, Jetfire lands on Earth and with the help of an unlikely human, they discover something that could end all those years of hopeless searching.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first Transformer's story, started simply because I had the urge.

This might turn into just a few chapter thing. It might just be some plotless story that just includes getting to know the characters.

I had one real intention behind this: reinterpreting the Transformers universe.

I'm very new to Transformers, the new movie got me into a craze and I've gone back and watched two different series from start to finish.

This story is not related to any single Transformers series! You will see references from both live action movies, the Transformers Armada series, and the Transformers Animated series.

Also a warning, the characters I am using are real characters in Transformers, but I'm reinterpreting them, they aren't meant to be like any of the originals completely, but you will see relations! Hopefully, I won't make any of you fans angry at the way I'm doing it!

Also, a note on the human. He's a character I had created without a purpose in mind, but he seemed to fit in with this as he's into Astronomy.

I'm always open to suggestions and criticism (preferably constructive).

I do not own anything from this story other than my human character!

All respected rights to Hasbro and such.

Enjoy!

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The night sky always seemed to hold the serenity Gabriel Hale desired. Nothing calmed or intrigued him like the sight above him always did. Although everything moved, nothing seemed to change. The vast darkness that expanded just outside the boundaries of their small, wet planet twisted and twirled around them, not caring one bit about the life and times of the beings that resided on the surface.

Gabriel pressed a button on his telescope, the lens rotating only millimeters to the desired point. The amateur astronomer pressed his pale blue eye to the eye piece and peered through it. A red, blurry dot resided in the center of his vision. A few adjustments later and it was perfectly clear. The dot appeared to be a meteor, which he'd been studying for the last few days.

Almost every night, Gabriel would take his car out, his expensive telescope stored in the truck, and search for an isolated place to peer at the vast emptiness above him. Three days ago, he'd spotted this object. At first, it had been too far away to tell anything about it. He knew it hadn't been there for long though. Research told him this dot was new to the night sky. The next night he returned. The dot had become more clear. Tonight was the third night he'd peered at it and it was beginning to worry him. This object was getting bigger. Too big. For something to gain size that fast from his vantage point meant one of two things. Either it was very large to begin with or it was moving very fast. Neither was a possibility he liked. It hadn't moved on the horizon at all, but was getting larger. That meant one thing: This object was headed for the planet or at least close enough to the planet to make him nervous.

He'd planned to send an email to the nearest planetarium to warn them of this by tonight. Peering through the eyepiece, he knew now it was too late. This object was hitting Earth's atmosphere, turning it red. They had minutes before it hit the surface.

Gabriel mentally cursed himself and grabbed the heavy telescope. He was hastily shoving the object back into its case. He had to find shelter right now. He could tell just by looking at it that it wouldn't hit the ocean. Learning about the psychics of these kinds of things told him it should land somewhere south of where he was. Many miles south to be exact, but an object of that size could fry him where he stood.

Nearly ripping the keys from his pocket, he got in his tiny little Honda Civic and turned it on. He pressed on the gas hard and fast enough that the tires spun in the dirt for several seconds before speeding back into the road. His speedometer read twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, but the two lane road stayed empty. He drove like that for 5 minutes.

With his radio turned down, the only sound that reached him was the air running over the small car. It was a bit unnerving. Unfortunately, it allowed him to hear another sound a lot sooner as well. A whooshing, crackling sound that could only be made by a heavy object moving through the air at great speed. He knew it was impossible, but he immediately thought of the meteor and turned his head to look at the land on the other side of the road.

It was in that brief glance that he saw it. That great object, red hot only about 30 yards from his car and feet from the ground. The next instant, it hit the ground in an explosion of rocks and dirt. Out of sheer instinctual reaction, he slammed on the brakes, the car tires squealing against the pavement as dirt showered his windshield. He thought in that instant, he was going to die. There was an explosion sure to hit the car windows any nano-seconds.

The car groaned to a halt and he waited for the red hot flash. Nearly 3 minutes passed before he realized it wasn't coming, his white-knuckles screaming in protest on the steering wheel.

Gabriel was not a cowardly person, but he was scared to move. What had just happened made no sense in his mind. He should be dead along with most of the people in a 30 mile radius. That rock next to him... All it did was shoot dust into the air, but why? He felt his arms trembling slightly, the muscles in his neck straining as he turned his wide eyes to the window at his side. It was coated in dirt as well, but he could see slightly through it. The rock was embedded fairly deeply into the ground and he couldn't see it at all, only the smoke that rose from it.

He had to get out, he knew he had to. Whatever that was...Seeing it was a once in a lifetime chance for him. Slowly, he released his grip from the steering wheel and willed his legs to move again. The door popped open and he got out, his hand gripping the door for balance. Outside of the car, dirt and rocks almost completely covered the road. A quick glance back told him that he was lucky his car was undamaged by all the debris.

He maneuvered his way across the road, his legs steadying out fairly quickly. The familiar feeling of astronomical discovery was replacing his shock as he dug his sneakers into the mound of dirt surrounding the crater. As his eyes peered over the top, he felt a feeling of normality settle over it. He understood the situation now.

What sat in the crater was a mangled hunk of metal. Obviously a satellite that had been pulled from orbit. He would have to mull over some of the details, but it all made sense now.

"Incredible..." he breathed, leaning back and sliding into the crater beside the steaming metal heap. He was sure that these things were designed to burn up upon entering the atmosphere, so seeing one like this was beyond anything he could imagine.

Strangely, as he approached the smoking ball, he felt no heat radiating from it. Surely it was hot after that entry? His curiosity got the better of him as he approached. He held a hand close to it, feeling for heat. As his hand drifted closer, feeling nothing, the tip of his finger touched the smooth metal plate covering a small section of the otherwise mangled mass. He expecting searing hot pain, but the reason he yanked his hand back was far different. The metal felt ice cold, like it would have in space.

"That's impossible." he mumbled to himself, extending his hand again. This time he pressed his entire hand to the smooth, cold metal plate. In that instant, two things happened. One, he noticed the metal was vibrating slightly. Two, it started to move. It started to **get up**. Metal shifted against metal as the heap began to move. Long strips of it began to unfold. The piece he'd touched swung out and struck him in the stomach, sending him against the crater wall with a grunt.

When he looked back up at the ball of metal, it was still moving, but not unfolding. It was standing up. He swore, it had the shape of a human! Sitting there, petrified, he picked out all four limbs, even ten fingers. As his eyes traveled upward, his mouth agape, he found its head. Faintly he heard the faint moving of gears as the head turned toward him, covered by the shadow of the night. The only thing visible on the head were two lights that flickered on in that instant, almost like eyes. Whatever this thing was, it was staring straight at him.

"What are you.....?!" he choked out on an exhale, the sound barely above a whisper, his legs backing him farther against the dirt wall.

The thing's head, if you could call it that, seemed to tilt slightly to the side. A string of sounds boomed from the thing. The only way he could describe the sound was like a computer trying to speak.

Gabriel gave no reaction to the sound. The thing, probably 20 feet tall, shifted. It took a step back in the crater and came down on its knee, surprisingly graceful for a giant heap of metal. As it bent over, its hands on the ground for support, it shoved it's head only feet from Gabriel. He didn't move an inch, not for a breath and not to look anywhere but directly into the lights on it's head. At this proximity, he noticed a smooth strip of metal that could be interpreted as a nose. He didn't look down to see if it had a mouth.

The thing was speaking again. Actually speaking this time, not just gibberish, but Gabriel still didn't understand it.

"You speak Russian?" The words came out in a whoosh. He was surprised he'd managed to speak at all.

The thing stopped speaking again and stared at him, or what he assumed to be staring. A whoosh of air expelled itself from somewhere on its head. It sounded almost like a sigh. The head shook and bobbed slightly, giving Gabriel a look at what he recognized to be a metal mouth. He saw the mouth move before he heard the words.

"You fleshlings have too many languages."

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Well that's the end of the first chapter!

Anyone who can guess who the Transformer is, kudos to you!

Also, if you do guess right, I'll mention you!

Hopefully everyone got the reference to the live-action movies here.

Reviews are loved!

I'll try to update soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Even in the short time I posted this up, one person guessed the Transformer right.

That person is KeybladerX. She gave me the answer over IM, but she got it right none-the-less.

Apparently the Russian gave him away.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

Hopefully it clears some things up!

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and the other respective companies do!

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"You fleshlings have too many languages."

Gabriel stared into the eye-lights of the thing in front of him. On its third attempt at communication, it had managed perfect English, though it was tinged with a slight Russian accent. "You speak english too?" he managed after a second. The shock of the situation was beginning to wear off, but not much. He was started to regain some rational thought and could feel his limbs again.

The thing didn't respond at first, just continued to stare at him for several more seconds. Finally it moved back from him, pushing itself back up on its feet. It mumbled something as it did, in a slightly annoyed manner.

Like this, Gabriel began to really look at it since it had transformed. Now he saw that what he thought had been mangled metal had actually been wires and tubes and mechanical parts. Until now, the form had looked like mostly a shadow, but now he was identifying parts. This thing was a robot.

"This vehicle... Is it yours?" It asked.

Gabriel looked up and followed the robot's gaze to his dirt-covered civic. "It is." As soon as he said that, he, as the voice was definitely male, stepped out of the crater and over him. When a giant robot walks toward your car without a specified purpose, one might fear for the car. Of course, Gabriel did at this point, turning and scampering up the crater wall on all fours, successfully smearing dirt across his clothes. By the time he pulled himself out, the robot was leaning over and examining his car. Specifically, he was poking and prodding the small vehicle with enough force to make it rock on its shocks.

"This is too small...Is there anything bigger?" The robot turned to look back at Gabriel, who was trying to move around the large metal feet to avoid being stepped on in case he decided to move back for any reason.

"Not here. What exactly are you?" he asked, moving around the side of the car, trying to get to the trunk. The robot didn't seem to want to hurt him, but he couldn't be sure. The fate of his car was questionable as well and he didn't want his telescope in danger as well. He popped the trunk and removed the heavy box.

"I am an Autobot. What are you?" the robot asked. Gabriel noticed that a small strip of metal moved upward above his eye as he spoke. It looked almost like he was raising an eyebrow at him. "Forget it, I know what you are." the Autobot said quickly, releasing a sound that was the equivalent of a snort.

"I don't know what an Autobot is either." Gabriel said, resting the box against his leg. "Are you even from this planet?"

The robot put a hand on his head, shaking it slightly. Every minute, the thing seemed to act more and more human. After several seconds it removed the hand and focused its eyes back on Gabriel's comparably smaller form.

"I am a Transformer, a robotic organism from the planet Cybertron. That should answer both of your questions."

So he was an alien... An alien robot, but an alien none the less. Not only that, but this alien could communicate with him. Somehow he had a feeling that the government had some sort of law against speaking to an alien. Even so, the entire situation was getting more and more impossible.

The answer also confused him. Transformer seemed to be the english equivalent of the race's name, but did it mean what it sounded like? He supposed the name had to do with curling up into a meteor shape. Then there was the planet. Shouldn't any of the telescopes on Earth, or in space for that matter, have noticed that there was a planet with alien life, especially if they could successfully travel long distances from their planet?

Of course it was at that moment that a thought hit him. The thought that should come to mind for anyone who had watched any type of Science Fiction movie, ever. Was this alien peaceful or in search of a planet to fry?

"Why are you here?" Gabriel asked, his voice dropping to a serious tone. His wits were back to him by now. Yes, this situation was completely unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Yes, there was a possibility he could die. Yes, he should be extremely shocked and/or scared. Luckily, he was one of those people who could, after a certain time, control themselves in out-of-the-ordinary situations. Although "out-of-the-ordinary" was an understatement in this case.

"THAT, is my own business, human." The Autobot snapped. Strangely, after a second, he gave a sigh and shook his head slightly, as if suddenly remembering something annoying. "My apologies, it's classified... If you will. If it calms those human emotions of yours though, I'm not here to destroy anything."

It gave Gabriel a slight relief to hear that, but he hadn't been all the worried in the first place. If this robot had meant any real harm in the first place, he probably would have been squished in that crater and not just through against the dirt. He suspected that hadn't been intentional anyway.

At that point, the robot seemed to remember something else. He twisted his body slightly, his head tilting to look toward the stars. Was he looking for his companions? That is, if he had any.

"Damn." The robot cursed, surprising Gabriel. He still wasn't sure how the robot knew their languages so well if he was from another planet.

"What?" Gabriel asked him. Obviously the Autobot hadn't seen whatever it was he was looking for and it was making him curious as to just what he'd failed to see.

The robot looked back down at him. "This planet does have flying vehicles correct? These pictures seem to indicate it..." The robot said, the last sentence trailing off into a grumble.

"Pictures, what are you talking about?"

The robot did that eyebrow raise thing again as he looked at him. "The pictures on your...What's the word... World Wide Web? The internet?"

"You know about the **internet**?" Now this was a shock to him. This alien technology was able to connect to their systems without a hookup obviously. A WiFi robot.

"It's how I can communicate using your blasted languages." The robot grumbled, once again showing his dislike of their many Earthly means of communication. "Now, where are your flying vehicles?"

Well his ability to speak was much clearer now. "There is an Air-force Base not too far away, but they probably aren't flying much at this time of night." Gabriel said. He still wasn't sure why this robot wanted to know, but he had claimed that he wasn't here to harm anyone. He had also realized by now that he really had no other besides trusting this Transformer's word.

"Then I suppose I'll be forced to wait." The robot mumbled, though the sound was easily loud enough for Gabriel to here. He shifted slightly on his large feet, throwing a glance at the sky again.

Gabriel watched the robot, wondering if he could wait. He wasn't sure the big guy had enough patience for it, judging by some of his previous actions. Sure enough, after a minute or so of silence, the Autobot let out an annoyed sigh and turned his eyes back on the human below him.

"Do you have a name, boy?" He asked, though he doubted that he really cared, but was just trying to kill time.

"Gabriel Hale." He answered. "Gabe for short. What about you?" He was getting a bit tired of calling him thing, it, robot, Autobot, or any other mental name he used at the sight of him.

"I am called Jetfire." The robot answered, shifting once again on his metal feet.

Gabriel shouldn't have been surprised, it was a very robot-sounding name. Although, the name led him to wonder. Maybe on his planet there was a reason for such a name, that maybe it had to do with characteristics or even his robot parts. He wasn't going to ask though.

It was at that moment that a sound reached his ears that made him look up. It was the sound of a super-sonic jet flying over head, a sound he'd grown used to. Sure enough, he saw the lights of a jet flying overhead. A glance at Jetfire showed him that he had heard the sound as well.

"Perfect..." He heard the robot mutter, sounding pleased for once. Just after that, beams of light shot from his eyes straight up into the sky. Gabriel, fearing the worst for the plane, looked up quickly. He could see the illuminated plane perfectly now. The lights coming from Jetfire's eyes were traced the body of the plane and luckily seemed to be doing it no harm. Gabriel tried his best to determine the type of plane, but he didn't know enough about them to recognize the strange design.

Suddenly, he heard a strange sound coming from in-front of him, where he knew the Autobot to be. In a split second he recognized it as the same sound that had been made as he had changed from the crumbled meteor shaped into the robot he was now.

Strangely, when Gabriel looked down to find out why the noise was occurring, Jetfire was no longer there. In his place, stood a plane. The exact same one that had been flying over head.

It was larger than he expected, especially where the wings connected to the plane. It was a fairly large juncture that seemed out of place to him. Unfortunately he couldn't see it well enough from his position to determine what it was used for since the plane was facing him.

The sudden appearance of course stunned him speechless, though at this point nothing should have surprised him, and he just stood watching it. Of course part of his mind connected Jetfire and the plane, but it was the back of his mind. For now all he could do was stare.

Suddenly, he heard what sounded like a pleased humming coming from the plane, the kind of sound a human would make.

"Admit-ably a fine piece of machinery, even for you humans."

Of course the source of the voice was the plane itself. Gabriel immediately recognized the voice as Jetfire's and was managing to get a hold of his wits once more. "Jetfire?" Yes, kind of a stupid question to be asking a surely lethal plane.

"No, I'm an ordinary plane. What do you think?" He grumbled. The plane shifted, rolling on its wheels toward Gabriel. On it's sides, the wings shifted forward slightly, almost like a twitch. He understood the purpose now. This type of jet had reposition-able wings. Currently, Jetfire had moved them to their forward position.

All at once, the name "Transformer" made complete sense. It was a literal translation of what he was. The name Jetfire was the same way.

"It does feel good to have my wings back..." Jetfire sighed to himself. The plane began to shift again, this time in an entirely different way. Like before, it began to unfold on itself and stand up. This time, Gabriel had the sense to watch closer.

At first, only the back half of the plane began to change. The tail split it two, moving and change, bending and flexing back into legs and feet. The legs rearranged themselves, a tail wing attracted to the ankle of each leg, as it pushed the rest of the body up into the air. As the landing gears retracted back inside the main body, two more limbs emerged. As his arms pulled out, twisting into position at his sides, the wings moved back into their down position as well as rotating around to stick out of his back. Then the nose of the plane seemed to break off, moving down completely, the rest of the torso making room for it as it melted into the body, the cockpit sticking outward from his chest. It was only then that Jetfire's head emerged out of the plane's body. Parts still moved and shifted in his body, but his transformation was complete.

The Transformer seemed almost as amazed by the entire thing as Gabriel was. He kept twisting around to get a new look at the completely new body. Nothing looked that same as before, even his face!

Jetfire's face was covered in a sort of armor as well. His mouth was covered over by two merged sections of metal. Just as Gabriel noticed them though, they were pulled back to reveal his mouth, the plates disappearing into small openings on each side. Very similar was the plate that now covered his eyes. There were holes for him to see through, almost like a mask, as it wrapped around to each side of his face, ending in pointed ends that stuck out on each side. Just as before, those two shifted off to the side, but this time stayed visible, adding two points jutting out the back of his head.

"Don't look so surprised... Gabe." The Autobot said, loosing some of the sarcastic tone.

"I'm not sure if you realize, but this situation isn't exactly normal." He replied, letting the side of his mouth pull up into a small smile. It was a bit strange to be called by name by an alien robot, but he was glad of that over "boy."

Jetfire merely gave a shrug, in a way shaking off the subject as well. He turned slightly, looking off over the landscape, dark as it was, you could still see the shadows of the mountains to the north.

"As always... Time is running short." Jetfire sighed to himself, seeming to remember his classified mission. "I must start my search."

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Okay first of all, yes, it is Jetfire.

The Russian accent is something from the Transformers Animated series and it amused me enough to add it in here!

Also, I feel I should add what type of plane he is.

I couldn't figure out how to add it without Gabriel seeming like a know it all, but here it is: It's a B-1 Lancer.

Awesome plane~

These things were made to drop Nuclear weapons, but now they can drop normal bombs.

It also has "variable-sweep wings", which means the wings move. It's currently the only one of its kind that is used at this point in time.

Also, to understand his Transformation more, I suggest you look at a picture of this plane as you read.

As always, comments and suggestions are loved!

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Wow, I actually managed to churn out another chapter in one day!

So far the support I've gotten on Fanfiction and Deviantart (Comments, reviews, favorites, or alerts), encouraged me to write faster.

Also I'd like to ask those who are keeping track of this story, I need some help.

I absolutely HATE the name of this story and I am looking for a new one. If anyone has a suggestion, please send it!

Once again, I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and those other companies do.

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"As always... Time is running short. I must start my search."

Gabriel peered up silently at the robot. By his mission, he assumed it was his reason for being here on Earth, which Jetfire had declared to be none of his business. Obviously, this was where the two would part ways. It was of course amazing that he had met this alien robot at all and he would never forget it. In a way though, he felt that he wanted to stay with the Autobot. Then again, he was fairly sure Jetfire didn't want anything to do with him.

Jetfire took a step back then, away from him and his car. He began to shift back down into his jet form again. Gabriel merely stood silently as the robot kneeled down, his legs forming into the tail and his arms folding back into the body of the jet. Within mere seconds, the plane stood in front of him, only looking out of the ordinary in the sense that it was sitting on a road.

Gabriel stepped back and around his car, lugging the box with his telescope along with him. Jetfire should have been able to maneuver around the car so he could take off.

"Well?" The Autobot suddenly said.

"Well what?" Gabriel wondered if the robot meant for him to move his car out of the way or say goodbye, or even ask more questions.

"Well are you going to get in or do I have to find someone else?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me kid."

Gabriel was dumbfounded now, furrowing his eyebrows together in confusion as he stared at the plane. It was a bit awkward as it had no face, per say, to actually look at.

"Why do you want me to get in?" Gabriel asked uncertainly.

Jetfire heaved a sigh of annoyance, letting it trail into an annoyed groan. "Listen, my mission may be classified to you as of now, but it might come in handy to have some native help on this planet. You don't have to come, but it'd make my life a whole lot easier if I didn't have to go scare the slag out of another human to get their help. Got it?"

Gabriel wanted to go, he knew that. Part of him told him it'd be dangerous, but he knew Jetfire wasn't going to purposely hurt him. The bruising forming on his ribs had been accidental.

"If I get in... Where are we going?" He asked. He didn't exactly want to travel across the country if that's what the Autobot planned to do. Traveling was fun of course, but not if you only had the clothes on your back and your college classes began at 8 AM the next morning.

Jetfire didn't answer immediately, falling completely silent for about a minute. "According to my scanners and a comparison with your maps... A place called Mt. Lassen."

Gabriel's eyebrows drew up in surprise. That wasn't far away at all, just a few counties over. By car it would take several hours, but in a jet it might take minutes.

"Will you bring me back here after you finish?" he asked, his fingers tapping gently on the plastic container at his side.

"Fine, just hurry up." Jetfire grumbled again.

Gabriel gave him a short nod, smiling slightly to himself as he walked back to his car. He quickly deposited the telescope in the trunk and drove the car onto the side of the road out of the way of any scarce traffic that might drive by. He got out and locked the door. And stopped.

"How am I supposed to get into the cockpit anyway?"

The idea obviously hadn't occurred to Jetfire as he cursed softly under his breath. After a few seconds, he worked it out though. "Get on the roof of that vehicle." He commanded.

Gabriel immediately caught onto the idea and obeyed the robot's order. At the same time, Jetfire pulled up next to him so that the door to the cockpit pulled up just overhead, beyond his reach. Gabriel was about to protest about the height different when the door suddenly swung open and the entire plane seemed to sink down on itself. A quick glance at the landing gear showed it was retracted slightly. It probably wasn't a very safe plan, but it worked. With a jump, Gabriel grabbed onto the bottom of the door and heaved himself up and inside the plane.

Of course he was surprised by the immense number of buttons and knobs in the planes interior.

"Don't touch anything." Jetfire warned him swiftly, the sound even louder from inside of the plane.

"I won't." Gabriel reassured him as he sat himself down on one of the seats. He heard the door shut behind him and the engine of the plane suddenly roared to life. He took that as the cue to buckle up, which he did with a bit of trouble since there were probably six of them.

Without a warning from Jetfire, unsurprisingly, the plane lurched forward down the road. Probably much faster than a normal plane should have, they were in the air.

"Feels good to be flying again..." he heard Jetfire rumble contently.

"So..." Gabriel said after a minute. "You can't tell me why you're here, but can you tell me what you're looking for on Mt. Lassen?"

Jetfire remained silent, obviously weighing his choices. Gabriel assumed that flying probably loosened the Transformer up, as he agreed to tell him.

"I'm tracking Energon signals." He responded, continuing after a short pause. "Energon is what powers my kind. What I'm looking for should give off that signal, even if only faintly."

"Energon..." Gabriel murmured. He had to wonder what it was. Maybe it was something they used often on Earth? But then wouldn't Jetfire have called it by an Earth known name? "What does it look like?"

"I guarantee you've never seen it before." Jetfire said, cutting straight to the heart of the question. "It is not found on this planet."

Both remained silent for a while after that. Strangely, when the silence was broken, it was by Jetfire.

"Are there any more questions you want to ask?" the jet asked.

Gabriel sat up a bit straighter and raised an eyebrow. "What are you actually going to answer?"

Strangely, the jet rumbled slightly under him, as if shaken by turbulence. Gabriel recognized it as a soft chuckling though. "I'll answer what I can." Jetfire replied after a second.

Gabriel paused and considered his many questions, decided on probing more into information he'd previously been given. "You called yourself an Autobot. What exactly is that?"

"That is a question I would gladly answer." Jetfire answer, altering his flight path slightly as they were nearing their target mountain range. "I can't explain everything, but an Autobot is a Transformer that fights for peace on our home planet. The alternate is a Decepticon. In short, they want to take over the universe."

Gabriel was surprised at that. He made it sound like they were enemies. He decided to take the more optimistic idea though. Maybe Autobots and Decepticons were merely two different political parties, like Republicans and Democrats. His subconscious told him his "optimistic" idea was wrong though. "Besides the different...ideals, is there any difference?"

"Yes, and 'ideals' is taking it lightly. Look at the center of the control panel." Jetfire told him. Gabriel did as he was told. In the center of the very large control panel was a symbol he'd only seen once before. It had been on Jetfire's wings. It was red and looked like a crying robot. "That is the Autobot symbol. The Decepticon's symbol is purple."

Just as he finished speaking, Jetfire cursed loudly. "There's nowhere to land!" Gabriel peered out the cockpit to confirm that. They were on the side of a mountain and neither of them had considered how they would **land**.

"We'll have to land at the base and climb up." Gabriel sighed. This wasn't good for him. That kind of climb would take all night and probably the rest of the next day.

"No, I've got an idea." Jetfire grunted. "Get up and go to the door!"

"I can't jump at this speed, that'd kill me!" Gabriel argued, catching onto the idea.

"Trust me and just do it, you aren't going to get hurt!"

Gabriel tensed to argue back, but he then remembered that he was inside an alien robot who was obviously in a hurry. Dangerous or not, it was best to do what Jetfire said. Gabriel quickly unbuckled the seat belts and headed toward the door he'd climbed into. He was unbalanced as Jetfire was being forced to fly in circles around the mountain.

"Now what?" Gabriel called to the Autobot. He never got an answer though. All of a sudden the door flew open and the plane tilted drastically, sending him hurtling out of the plane's relative safety. A scream caught in his throat as he tumbled downward, knowing he was high enough up the he wouldn't survive the fall. In his own terror, Gabriel clenched his eyes shut as the rocky summit closed in on him.

Then he heard a metallic thunk. Then he felt it.

"I told you that you wouldn't get hurt." he heard a voice grumble over him.

Upon opening his eyes, Gabriel found he'd been caught by Jetfire before hitting the ground. The robot had managed to transform and grab him before he hit the ground.

"NEVER do that again." Gabriel managed breathlessly. He tried to put a layer of hate in it, but it wasn't achieved. Terror was really the only emotion in his voice as he choked down air, trying to resume normal blood flow to his face.

"Quit complaining. You aren't offline are you?" Jetfire snorted, raising him to eye-level.

Gabriel gave him the best evil-eye he could manage as he lay draped limply over the metal hand. "Dead is the term for humans. And I'm not dead, but I may have a cracked rib thanks to you."

Jetfire ignored the evil-eye and raised a metal eyebrow at the cracked rib comment. He obviously wasn't very knowledgeable in the human anatomy area. "It was the only way." The Autobot grumbled in his own defense, lowering his hand down to let Gabriel down.

Once on his feet, Gabriel felt extremely nauseous and had to struggle to hold down his dinner. All the while, Jetfire seemed more interested in locating the source of the Energon signal.

"Come on, it's this way." Jetfire said, already beginning to climb up to the rim.

After a minute, Gabriel got control of his stomach again and began up after the robot, even though he was having trouble with his balance. Soon his stomach began to trouble him again as the scent of rotten eggs reached his nose.

Oh. Right. He'd forgotten until now, but Mt. Lassen was actually an active volcano. It hadn't erupted since the beginning of the 20th century, but sulfur, the source of the putrid stench, was still rising from the lava vents.

"What exactly are we looking for? Is it obvious?" Gabriel said when he'd finally caught up to Jetfire. The Autobot was now standing over a rather large vent. Of course, that was large to Gabriel's standards. Compared to Jetfire, it was only about the size of is foot.

"I'm not exactly sure. It could just be a small Energon crystal that happened to land on the planet... Or it could be something else." Jetfire answered, peering down into the dark hole.

"And it's in there?" Gabriel asked, gesturing toward the hole. Jetfire nodded. "I have to go in to look for it?"

Jetfire turned his gaze on him. "I'm too big obviously." he snorted. "I thought this might happen, which is another reason why I asked you to come."

Gabriel had known he was being used in a sense, but he hadn't minded. He was glad to be useful, though he'd prefer not to be tossed around like a rag-doll. "Fine. Just give me a little bit of light at least." he sighed.

In response, the lights in Jetfire's eyes increased in intensity, illuminating the vent. Luckily for him, it slopped downward at a decent rate for along about twenty feet before it hit what looked like a decent tunnel. The only problem he had was that it smelled of sulfur.

With another small sigh and a deep breath of clean air, Gabriel turned and began to climb down into the tunnel. He managed to get to the bottom without any injury other than a few scrapes and his ribs throbbing from his previous ordeal. "Now what?" he called back up to the robot.

"Do you see any light down there?" Jetfire asked.

Gabriel thought it was a stupid question, but sure enough, with a quick scan around, he spotted a light. About thirty yards away there was something glowing in the wall. "I see something!" he called back up.

"Good, that should be it. Go and get it if you can." Jetfire said.

Gabriel nodded to show he understood and began to walk towards it. It was a slow walk though as there was no light between the Energon source and Jetfire's light. He had to inch his way slowly toward it, hands outstretched blindly as he struggled not to trip over or run into anything. It took him several minutes, but he managed to get to it without falling down.

What he saw was incredible. He couldn't say exactly what it was though. In the simplest of terms, it was a rectangle surrounding a glowing blue crystal. It gave off of feeling of power though, as if the mere possession of it could change the fate of any world. Out of sheer instinct, he reached out to touch it. Just as his fingers came in contact with the source of the blue light... He knew it wasn't his to hold. He just knew. This... Whatever it was... It belonged to someone else, someone powerful.

After he touched it, Gabriel seemed to regain himself. This was the source of Energon signal and he'd come to get it. As it was, it seemed as if it was ready to be taken, a strange way to put it but the best way. It had obviously been buried in lava from the last eruption as it was actually buried nearly a foot in the wall. Even so, it looked almost as if it had knocked away the excess rock itself.

"Did you get it?" he heard Jetfire call from above him, sounding a bit impatient.

Gabriel chose to ignore him as he reached for the object. He grasped each side of it and lifted it easily out of it's hole in the wall. It was far lighter than he expected and he tucked it easily under his arm.

"Yes, yes. I'm coming!" Gabriel called back as he make his way back toward the opening. It was much easier since he was carrying a light source now.

"Primus! That's impossible!" Jetfire choked almost as soon as he'd come into view. Looking up, the Autobot looked shocked to his core. He was staring at the object tucked under Gabriel's arm in both terror and wonder.

Gabriel felt he should have been scared of what he held since the giant robot was, but he knew that he had been scared for a different reason. "I'm guessing this is what you were looking for then?" he asked, pulling himself up the vent with his free hand.

Jetfire didn't respond, just backed up from the hole as Gabriel came out. He was staring, open-mouthed at him. "Just...Hold it out for me to see." the stunned Autobot said.

Gabriel did as he said, supporting it with both hands, gripping it on either side of the golden rectangle that surrounded the crystal.

Jetfire bent down and leaned in close to examine it, remaining silent for a long time as he did. It was obvious that the sight of it was welcome to him, but he also seemed completely unwilling to touch it.

"No...It was not what I was looking for... But it's almost as good." Jetfire said slowly, as if weighing his words. "Oh Primus, it's been nearly five hundred years...." he trailed off under his breath.

"Then what is it?" Gabriel asked, trying his best to ignore his curiosity at Jetfire's mumbled comment.

"I can only tell you this... It's called the Matrix of Leadership..." Jetfire said, his voice still unsteady as he pulled away.

Gabriel tucked it back under his arm as Jetfire moved away. As he expected, knowing what it was hadn't answered his questions. "Why are you so stunned to see it then?" He pried.

Jetfire seemed then to hold in a number of things he wanted to say. He once again seemed to try to hide under the classified excuse. "It means 500 years of near hopeless searching is almost over." Jetfire said, his voice sounding weary, almost old.

Gabriel just nodded. This wasn't what he was looking for, but the Matrix obviously held the key to finding the true reason that he had come to Earth.

"Gabriel... I need you to do me one more favor." The Autobot suddenly said, eyeing Gabriel and the Matrix again.

"What is it?" Gabriel couldn't tell by the tone if it was a bad thing or not.

"I need you to keep that for the time being. Keep it safe."

Gabriel furrowed his eyebrows. Why him? This was an extremely important object and Jetfire was entrusting it to him? A human boy? "Why can't you? You have a better chance of protecting it." he pointed out.

Jetfire sighed and shook his head slightly. "It's not mine to take. I'm not worthy of holding it, even if it's only for safe keeping."

Gabriel understood immediately. Even though he wasn't sure on the specifics of the Matrix, he understood what Jetfire meant by it wasn't his to take. He knew that it wasn't his either, but he could keep it safe until its' real owner came back to claim it. Somehow, Gabriel felt that Jetfire knew who it belonged to though.

"Fine. I will guard it for you... In exchange for something." Gabriel said, his voice firm. Jetfire eyed him. "I want to know everything. Why you're here, what this is, and who it belongs to. Everything. Got it?"

Gabriel expected a protest from Jetfire about this deal. To his surprise, the Autobot put up no fight at all.

"Guard the Matrix with your life and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

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Yes, that's right! The Matrix of Leadership is here!

I did in fact have it look like the one used in most of the series.

I dearly love Revenge of the Fallen, but I wanted to Matrix to be shaped to fit in a Spark Chamber like it is in most of the series.

And yes, soon the actual plot to this story will be revealed!

True, it might be a bit too soon to reveal it, but I'm not entirely sure how long this story is going to be.

Although I bet most of you reading this can easily guess the basic plot of this story just by this chapter.

Oh well! Hope you are enjoying it so far!


	4. Chapter 4

Before anyone reads this chapter I'd like to point something out that I noticed in the movies.

When the Transformers land anywhere near anything military, no one seems to notice. Like in Revenge of the Fallen where like 6 Deceptions crash into Aircraft Carrier.

I'm guessing the reasoning behind that is either they are going too fast to get picked up on radar or maybe it was just something about what the Transformers are made off. It could just have been they ignored it because they were basically meteors.

Please keep the last "theory" in mind while reading this chapter as this is what I'm trying to convey.

Transformers does not belong to me! It belongs to Hasbro and it's other respective companies.

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Even when in a Stasis Sleep, the vast distances of space could be felt. Years of traveling alone wore hard at a bot's processor. Most others of his kind dealt with the same problems as he did of course, but often he asked himself if it was worth it. The answer he often came up with might be considered treasonous to some.

Now, one of his numerous journey's was coming to an end as he approached his destination. His processor had begun awakening him as his compact form entered the atmosphere of yet another planet.

Strangely, as he fell, he felt a signal hit him. It was a native one, not something was another Transformer. He let it open up and explored it, discovering a vast wealth of information. There were names, dates, languages, codes, everything. Eventually he found a name for the signal. The internet or the World Wide Web.

This planet had life and by the looks of the internet, quiet a bit. That could prove troublesome to his cause though. Luckily, it seemed as if this planet had technology compatible with his.

_Oh sweet Primus! _he thought. _This planet has jets!_

It had been decades, almost a century, since he'd flown. All of the last few planets he'd been to had either been lifeless or had no intelligent life. Now finally he'd be able to take to the air again. To many of his kind, ground life was preferable, but to those who took to the skies like he had, it was almost impossible to live without it.

Now he found himself wishing that this planet's atmosphere wasn't so thick so he could land already.

With a scan of the internet and his own internal instruments, he found where he was to land. In the ocean. This planet was so wet and he was to land in the center of the largest ocean on this planet! The Pacific ocean. The largest and probably the most dangerous of its kind. It was also dotted with small islands, most thanks to volcanic activity in a region called The Ring of Fire. It was hardly a creative name, but these...Humans seemed to be literal people. They also seemed willing to share everything about themselves since they projected such a signal across their very airspace.

Another inspection of his surroundings told him he was landing very close, if not on (_Thank the All Spark._), a series of islands known as Hawaii. According to a strangely helpful website called Wikipedia, the islands were also part of a much larger nation called the United States of America. According to his calculations, he would land in a few minutes.

Also to his luck, there seemed to be a number of Naval Bases on the islands. Another scan of Wikipedia gave him a list of jets and planes that might be located on such a Base. The idea thrilled him, as his searching of such things reminded him of an apparent "internet sensation" called Online Shopping.

It was at this point in time that he pried himself away from his "Googling" and payed more attention to his arrival on the planet's surface. As of yet he couldn't actually see anything because of his bared form, but from his instruments he could tell he was extremely close to hitting the water.

Just as the thought passed through his mind, he hit the water with such force that he was almost positive it jarred his processor out of place. All conscious thought on his part stopped for several seconds as the water around him hissed and heated up, his own denser form beginning to sink into the deep ocean water.

Once he'd gotten his processor back online fully, he began to move. He didn't intend to let himself hit the ocean floor. He was far too eager to obtain a new form.

He nearly groaned in pleasure as his form began to untwist from his accursed traveling form. He stretched his servos, **arms **he corrected in reference to human terms, and let his optics flicker on. While he'd never enjoyed the feeling of liquid within his innards, it was a welcome change to emptiness within a compressed form. Now he was free to move himself as he hadn't since he'd left his last planet.

Now he fired up the engines that rested in his legs, allowing them to begin his journey through the dark water. His path was toward the nearest of the Hawaiian Islands, in which there was a Naval Base. He kept himself on course using what he could now identify as a "GPS" system of his own matched with the Earthly maps.

After several minutes, he found himself having to avoid the large hulls of ships as he propelled himself into a harbor. Several times he found himself ramming his head plates into them, thoroughly scattering his thoughts with a metallic ringing. He was beginning to wonder if this planet was worth the jets.

Finally he managed to surface from the water, getting his first real world of the planet he'd landed on. The first thing he saw was of course that he was surrounded on two sides by the hulking metal hulls of two...What were they called...? Aircraft Carriers if the search engine was correct. He intended to get a more intimate look at the deck of those ships, but he wanted to finish his look-around first.

On the other two sides of him were open ocean and finally land. From his point he saw mostly buildings and docks, but with an adjustment of his optics, he managed to zoom in past that. He saw trees and planets. Not many planets had the color green like that. According to the internet, this island had plenty in the way of such "natural beauty." Unfortunately, that wasn't why he was here. His mission required him to get up on those ships, although that wasn't a bad thing either. The thought of the jets just above him made his engines inch to start moving again.

So he did. Keeping his optics above the water line, he motored his way toward the edge of the docks. It took him a minute or two considering the length of Aircraft Carriers. The docks were still over his head and the only thing sturdy enough to support him was a small metal ladder that dropped into the water from the dock. It was only about as big as his hand. It might support him or it might get crushed. It was his best and only option at the moment though. So he reached out one hand and clamped down on it as far up as it could reach. It squealed as metal rubbed against metal. Ignoring the sound, he began to drag himself up out of the water. The ladder caved slightly inward in his grip. Quickly he grabbed onto the ladder just under the dock's edge, quickly reached up with the first hand to grab it as the ladder broke off and fell into the water. From there he easily hauled himself onto the dock and eyed the area around him. Considering the time of night, it was completely empty. He noticed a camera pointed at him from the edge of a building though. Something would come to inspect him within a few minutes.

The Aircraft Carrier's decks were still high overhead and he needed to find a quick way to get up. He noisily clanked across the dock at a run, headed to inspect the side of the nearest ship. To his luck, there was a gangplank, small as it was, running from the dock up to a story or two under the main deck. That was where he was headed. He doubted that the flimsily strip of metal would hold him, but he had to try. Oh Primus, he'd be glad when he had his wings back!

Somewhere behind him, he heard a door open. He expected that a human had come to inspect the strange thing on the camera that was his large metal form. He had to hurry.

He experimentally placed a foot on the gangplank. It groaned slightly. Obviously he had to run.

Quickly, he jumped forward, smacking one foot in front of the other, actually denting the gangplank as he ran up it. It bounced up and down violently as he did and whined under his weight. Blast these tiny human walkways! He wasn't sure if he would make it, so he increased his speed as much as he could. Nearing the end, he heard two things: a startled shout from the human and the final, groaning snap of the hinges on the bottom end of the gangplank.

In a split second decision, the engines on each of his legs flipped onto full power and he took one flying leap from the metal walkway. The engines gave him a little added lift, giving him the perfect amount of height to reach his intended endpoint. His fingers grasped the edge of the carrier's top deck tightly enough to leave dents in them. He was NOT about to let himself slip off after that mess. Letting his engines go off, he dragged his body up over the edge. Behind him he heard the human call something. It sounded as if it was a call for back up. That'd be a smart move for the human, though not for him.

It was then that he managed to stand up fully and get a decent look at the array of jets and planes that rested in rows all around him. They looked even better in person and each of them were a perfect size match for him! Now he just had to choose one.

Carefully, he stepped across the deck, taking in each model as he did. Of course he also matched each to a Wikipedia article to find the specifics of each. Finally, at the edge of the carrier, he spotted the perfect one. An AV-8B Harrier II. Commonly called a Harrier Jet, a type of jet used to make vertical take offs and landings.

He heard a rabble of confusion growing down the dock where more humans were obviously gathering. His time was running short if he wanted to escape without blowing something up.

Stepping up to the Harrier Jet, he focused his optics on it, letting them release a brighter light. His optics actually stopped functioning for sight as he scanned the jet. Instead, calculations, specifics, model information, and design plans ran across his processor as his entire body began to adapt. He felt his limbs automatically twist up and fold into his body as he changed. After only a few mere seconds, he found his body back in a familiar, airborne able form. Now the urge was so great to take off then and there that he didn't hold it back. His engines immediately fired up. He felt thrust build up under his wings as the vertical engines did there jobs. Soon, he felt his landing gear lift of from the deck, which he promptly folded away into his body. Then his rear engines kicked in, jerked him forward with more power than he expected. Within seconds he was flying high away from the base, leaving behind a helicopter that had just lifted off to check out the confusion he'd caused.

Even before he was fully over the ocean, he was enjoying the familiar feeling. The air whistled across his sleek new form as he cut through it effortlessly. Even the thick atmosphere of this new planet was no match for him.

Unfortunately, because he'd successfully scanned the Harrier Jet, he then remembered his true mission for being here. He heaved a slightly annoyed sigh, he couldn't muster up too much annoyance though since he was still giddy from the flying.

Adjusting himself higher into the atmosphere, the Transformer began to scan the planet. As usual, several small Energon signals popped up on the radar. Ever planet had bits of Energon on them for one reason or another and this planet was no different. But... He saw one thing that did surprise him...

An Energon signal that was coming from another Transformer. It wasn't too far away either, just across the Pacific ocean in another U.S. state called California.

Upon closer examination of the signal, he realized it was actually an old friend. He chuckled slightly to himself, his wing-flaps shaking gently as he did, making him bob up and down in the air. The two hadn't managed to land on the same planet in ages. He had to admit, being separated was probably the best for each of them, but on this planet, sure to be another failed attempt in the search, it'd be safe for a little catching up.

By midday tomorrow he'd be able to meet up with Jetfire. With that thought in mind, Starscream adjusted his path toward a town called Sacramento.

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Bet no one saw that coming huh?

Yep, that is not a typo. Starscream and Jetfire are buddies.

Oddly, I didn't mean to make Starscream's character that...Fangirlish?

I like it though, so I don't think I'll change it.

Also, keep in mind this is from his point of view so he might not act exactly like that when it's not from his POV.

Anyway, hope you still enjoy it!


	5. Chapter 5

Oh wow, here we go!

Finally the answer is here and the plot line will be revealed!

Sorry it's so later everyone, I swear I didn't lose interest in this story.

I was on vacation in California, not far from where this story is taking place actually.

Now I'm back and I have the chapter finished!

I also would like to mention that since school is starting one week from today, I won't be updated once every two days like I did for the first 4 chapters.

Hopefully I'll be able to get one out every week, but who knows.

I'd also like to quickly thank my friend Etna for beta-reading these for me and my friend Pell for helping fuel this project!

Transformers doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Hasbro and its other respective companies.

Enjoy!

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"Guard the Matrix with your life and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

That's what Jetfire had told him several days ago. He had kept up his end of the bargain of course. He'd filled in every missing piece and even let him pry deeper into some unrelated story-lines. At this point it seemed to Jetfire that since Gabriel was already a part of this, he might as well answer his questions.

Gabriel released a heavy sigh and dropped his pen down on his desk. Ever since the night he met Jetfire, he'd been having trouble concentrating with studying and paying attention in class. It was unsurprising though and he was accepting it for the time being. Whenever it got bad enough, he just had to stop what he was doing.

Standing up from the desk that he and his roommate shared, he walked over to his bed. It was simple, just a small cot with a too large confronter on it. For him, this finally had come in handy. As he kneelt down by his bed, he lifted the side of the comforter, glad that his roommate had afternoon classes. Underneath was a blanket wrapped bundle that had been wedged between two plastic bins holding his miscellaneous items. He knew it wasn't the best way to treat the item, considering it's importance, but his roommate had been known to search through his stuff when he wasn't there. Previously, anything that had peeked his curiosity had caused the nosy teen to dig until he found it, despite Gabriel telling him no.

Now, Gabriel slid the bundle out and laid it at the side of the bed, pulling back the folds of the blanket. Soon, the Matrix showed itself from inside of the blanket. The item still glowed softly and pulsed an aura of power, but now it could only be felt when it was uncovered. It was almost as if it had a mind of it's own, knowing when it needed to hide itself and when it didn't.

Now as he sat there and watched the Matrix, he let himself recount that night's events.

_Gabriel sat awkwardly in the pilot's seat inside Jetfire's cockpit. After some struggling on both of their parts, they'd managed to load up and take off from the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, they'd both remained silent since leaving Mt. Lassen. Jetfire was obviously uncomfortable with having the Matrix inside of him and Gabriel sat just waiting for an explanation._

_After several minutes, Gabriel took it upon himself to strike up the conversation. "So... Because the Matrix is here, what does that mean?"_

_Jetfire let out a soft sigh, but seemed to come to life a bit more. "It's better to start from the beginning." The jet started. A small screen on the control panel in front of Gabriel lit up then. "As I've said, we Transformer's came from the planet Cybertron." The screen changed, showing images of a city, something that looked far too advanced to be from Earth. The image swiveled, showing many other Transformers. Gabriel suspected this was a sort of memory of Jetfire's. A few of the Autobots in the video silently greeted the earlier Jetfire._

_"But the Great War has torn the planet apart to the point that it is likely beyond any repair." The image changed again, this time to the same city in ruins. "But this has only been the case since fairly recently." Jetfire sighed._

_"How recently?" Gabriel pushed, suspecting that it wasn't his "recently."_

_"A little over 200 of your Earth years." The bot replied, freeing the image on the screen. "But the reason that I am here is due to an event that occurred nearly 500 years ago." _

_Gabriel watched as the screen flickered slightly. Jetfire seemed to be trying to find a way to explain. This time, two images popped up side by side. On the right, a silver robot stood, a purple Decepticon symbol riding probably on a chest plate. Somehow, his entire appearance radiated a terrible, malicious feeling. _

_On the left was an Autobot, the red symbol displayed on his chest plate. This Autobot was covered in red and blue. The bot's optics, though unmoving at this point, seemed to bear down on him. Both of these Transformer's were of huge importance._

_"Megatron is the leader of the Decepticons." Jetfire began, pulling Gabriel's eyes away from the images. "He's the cruelest of any being and rules over his kind with an iron fist." His voice was tight as he spoke, an obvious hate for the robot. _

_When he spoke again, his tone seemed mournful. "The leader of the Autobots was Optimus Prime." _

_Gabriel put a hand on the end of the control panel. "Was?" he asked._

_"Hopefully he still is. That's why I'm here." Jetfire sighed._

_"I still don't understand."_

_"Be patient and let me finish then." Jetfire grumbled slightly. He paused again as the screen flickered to a new image. What came on looked like a giant metal ring, some kind of machine from a Sci-Fi movie._

_"This is what my people call a Space Bridge. It is how my kind travels across the universe. It is what you might call a transporter." Gabriel was staring at the picture, stunned. "Do not ask me how they work, I don't know." Jetfire added._

_The image flickered out again before the screen went black. Jetfire fell silent again, but this time for several minutes. Gabriel waited patiently, suspecting that this story wasn't one he particularly enjoyed._

_Finally, Jetfire began again, his voice low. "Nearly 500 years ago, the last great battle in our war was fought. There were great casualties on both sides." _

_Gabriel listened silently. He suspected that Jetfire had lost good many of good friends in that battle, but he wasn't going to pry into that._

_"I was injured heavily in that battle, but that is irrelevant. What is important is that the battle took place near one of our own Space Bridges. The bridge was being booted up to try to transport some of the injured away from the battle. Unfortunately, a Decepticon damaged it in the process." He paused again, but only shortly this time. "Somehow in the confusion of the battle Optimus and Megatron got too near the space bridge. No one's completely sure how it happened, but as they were locked in battle they were pulled into the malfunctioning space bridge."_

_Gabriel peered down at the Matrix that was rested across his legs. The story was incredible, but it still only drew more questions. He kept them silent. Jetfire was obviously not done._

_"After that, the battle dispersed, no one was organized without our leader. We retreated back to our base in hopes of locating Optimus. We found no sign of him though. We knew that meant he was either too far away, offline, or very close to being offline." Jetfire heaved another sigh, the metal inside the cockpit groaning as it flexed slightly. "Scouts were sent in every direction to search for him. The Decepticons did the same as well. I became a scout shortly after I was repaired."_

_Gabriel looked up to watch the horizon out the window. "So you're here looking for Optimus?" he asked quietly._

_"Yes."_

_"What does the Matrix have to do with that?"_

_"The Matrix belongs to Optimus. It is something that each Autobot leader have held in the past. If it is here on this planet, Optimus can't be far from it." Jetfire said, an absolute certainty in his voice._

_Gabriel nodded shortly and leaned back in the chair. It was hard to imagine that his planet had been housing one, if not two, alien leaders for the last five centuries, but if what Jetfire was telling him was correct, then that was the case._

Gabriel draped the cloth back over the Matrix and pushed it back under his bed, tucking it safely between the plastic bins.

After they had parted ways back at the crater, Jetfire had decided to hide himself in the hills near by. For now, he would wait for Gabriel to help him search the planet. Of course, Gabriel had suggested that he try to search some areas by himself, but Jetfire had refused. Wherever he went to search, the Matrix would go with him, but Jetfire wouldn't take the Matrix without Gabriel. After waiting five centuries, Gabriel supposed it wasn't exactly a sacrifice.

Standing up, dropping the comforter down again as he did, Gabriel stood up and walked back over to his desk. He'd gotten his short break and he needed to get back to studying, even if it was currently impossible.

For several minutes he kept his minimal concentration of the words inside of his textbook, observing at least some of the information. What was even worse was that this was the Astronomy textbook, his favorite subject. It was of course still extremely interesting, but he was scatterbrained for obvious reasons.

After about ten minutes, something else began to distract him. Slowly, a crowd of voices had begun to rise beneath his window. He'd managed to ignore it, thinking it was some fight between frat boys. By now it had gotten loud enough to make him curious. It also seemed that the tone of the voices weren't anger or excitement over a fight, but curious voices.

Slightly annoyed, he stood up from his chair and turned to look down from his 4th floor window. Sitting in the parking lot, stretched out in a way that made him wonder how he had possibly managed to get into the lot without hitting something, was Jetfire. The huge B-1 Lancer, which he'd managed to identify after a night of research, was parked in a college dorm parking lot, wings flexed backward over rows of rows. He noted that several of the taller cars had small, but visible scratches of their roofs. The Autobot wasn't moving either, just waiting silently. The noise was coming from an enlarging crowd of students surrounding the plane. They obviously wanted to know how it had gotten there and of course why. Several were groaning over their cars, but most seemed to not care.

Gabriel felt his jaw begin to go slack as he stared down at the plane. Slowly, his eyebrows lowered in slight worry. They'd agreed to meet up on Friday night back near the crater to search again, but here he was. What was so important that he needed to meet him here at his dorm and he couldn't even wait to seek him out on his nightly star gazing trip?

Turning quickly away from the window, Gabriel grabbed his car keys and his backpack, shoving the blanket-wrapped Matrix inside, before hurrying out the door. He ignored the elevator, sure it would be full of people hoping to get a closer look at the B-1 jet, and ran straight for the stairs. He spirited down them, skipping three steps at times. By the time he reached the first floor, his hair was tousled across his forehead and he was panting hard. As he ran outside towards the parking lot, part of him wondered vaguely how he was going to talk to Jetfire without every other student thinking he was a nut job.

When he got close enough, he realize it wouldn't be as big of a problem as he thought. Most of the students seemed to be staying in a big circle around Jetfire, seeming to be afraid of getting in some kind of trouble for touching it.

"Excuse me.... Pardon me...Need to get through." Gabriel muttered quickly as he slid through the crowd. Many gave him startled glances as he wasn't one to shove through a crowd, but was more likely to observe from a distance.

Once he'd gotten through to the front, he realized quite a bit of the crowd was watching him curiously. He tried his best to ignore them as he walked up toward where Jetfire's front landing gear was. As he stopped by it, he rested a hand on one of the large wheels, trying to hide his face behind the landing gear.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed softly, hoping that Jetfire could hear him.

"Took you long enough to get out here. They're **swarming**." Jetfire grumbled back, obviously not happy with the attention he was receiving. Unfortunately, it was loud enough the several of the students heard it and gasped, whispering amongst themselves. Several had understood it, but others had just heard his voice.

"I was studying." Gabriel hissed back, glancing at a few of the whispering students. A few seemed to be inching forward now. "What are you doing here? What happened?"

"Something's coming. I can't explain here." Jetfire grunted quietly. "Meet me at the usual spot and bring **it **with you, hidden of course."

Gabriel knew that by "it", he meant the Matrix. He shifted the bag on his back slightly and nodded slightly. "Fine, but good luck getting out of here." Gabriel said slightly, patting the wheel once before stepping back. The students were confident enough that several were sitting on the wheels of the rear landing gear.

Gabriel quickly moved toward his car, thankful it was in the back of the parking lot, ignoring several questions that students shouted at him.

Suddenly, a loud, piercing wail broke out from the jet. It sounded like an emergency alarm going off and made everyone in the area, including Gabriel, jump. It also sent the students that had ventured closer to Jetfire take off running. Everyone pushed back into a wider circle around him. Almost immediately, the B-1 started forward on its wheels, moving expertly through the tiny parking lot. Students that had been standing in front of it scattered in seconds. Somehow, Jetfire made it out of the lot without any problems. Of course, the oncoming traffic all squealed to a halt as the plane wheeled out on the main road. He took up both oncoming lanes and the center lane as he turned onto it. Then, without a second of hesitation, the back jets of the plane fired on and it shot off, probably faster that a normal jet would, down the residential street. To everyone's amazement, the wheels of the jet pulled up from the pavement just in time to miss the slower cars in front of it.

If it had been an ordinary plane, Gabriel suspected he would have been just as dumbfounded as everyone else was, but since he knew what was beneath that plane's exterior, it felt almost normal to him.

Now, Gabriel quickly ran to his little Honda Civic, turned it on, and sped off out of the parking lot before any of the students had taken there eyes off of the dot in the sky that was Jetfire speeding away.

He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but he knew for certain that it wasn't good. Whatever was coming, was coming fast. It was a threat to Jetfire and his mission. Somehow Gabriel knew now, whatever happened today, was going to make Jetfire's mission more complicated than what either of them had suspected.

-------

I hope that flashback scene made sense, I feel a bit out of practice since I've been gone.

Also, at some point I intend to add several other Transformers to this mix.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for which ones to add, Autobot or Decepticon, then send them please!

Also, another reason I might be adding slow is because I'm currently watching the Transformers G1 series for the first time!

I swear, I had no idea that Skyfire (Jetfire), was friends with Starscream.

It was just some weird coincidence that I can actually explain.

After watching the Armada series with Pell, she fell in love with Starscream's character and I fell in love with Jetfire's.

When I planned this story, I wanted both of these characters, but I didn't want them to have a** complete** bloody rage towards the other.

So anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


	6. Chapter 6

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and I managed to crank it out in only about 6 hours.

That time doesn't include the times when I wasn't writing though.

Anyway, I hope this is as much fun to read as it was to write.

Once again, I'm looking to rename this story, ideas for a new name would be much appreciated!

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and other companies do!

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Gabriel parked his car off of the road this time. He was back at the crater where Jetfire had landed several days ago and dirt still was strewn everywhere. In fact it looked like it had barely moved since then. He doubted only one or two people had driven this way since.

Turning the car off, he climbed out of his side, leaving the keys in the ignition and snagging his backpack off of the passenger seat. A quick check of his cell phone told him he'd managed to get here in less than ten minutes. Of course he'd broken all sorts of traffic laws to do it.

Now he walked toward the crater, where Jetfire seemed to be attempting to hide. Half of his head was sticking up over the side of the crater. When Gabriel got to the edge to look down on him, he found Jetfire in an awkward bent up position that he'd had to manage so as not to bend his wings on the wall of the crater.

"You can get up now." Gabriel told him. As he did, Jetfire turned his eyes on him, seeming a bit distracted. "Now can you please explain what is coming?"

Jetfire grunted as he pushed himself up, apparently relieved to uncurl himself. He stood up to his full height and turned his eyes down at the boy. "Took you long enough." he grunted, though Gabriel suspected he merely needed to grouch about something at this point. In respond, Gabriel gave him a look that meant "move on or else." The threat would be wasted on the Autobot, but it got the job done.

Jetfire let out an annoyed huff and made a very human gesture, by pinching the bridge of his nose plates. "In short... A Decepticon is coming."

Gabriel had suspected something along those lines, but it didn't help to here it come from the robot. Unconsciously, he clutched the strap of his bag a bit tighter. "Do they know it's here?" he asked seriously.

"That, I'm not entirely sure of..." Jetfire started. He shifted on his feet and rolled his head back for a second. "But, I know this Decepticon personally."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow in confusion. Jetfire just continued to fidget. "Personally?"

"Yes. We are enemies, but you might say we are...acquaintances." Jetfire sighed. After a few moments of silence, he added "We've talked on neutral terms a few times."

"So is he a threat or not?" Gabriel pushed, started to feel anxious as well. When a two story robot started acting nervous, it's not a surprise when it rubs off on the smaller being.

"I don't **know**." Jetfire half snapped. "He might just be coming by coincidence, or it could be the energon signal from the Matrix, or he might now that we have the Matrix." The wings on Jetfire's back began to twitch up and down in a nervous fashion.

"So what do we do?" Gabriel pushed again, no longer threatened by Jetfire's burst of annoyance. He knew by now that was how the Autobot was; being annoyed by everything in general. He was just one of those bots.

Jetfire released a heavy sigh and sunk a bit on his joints. Eying Gabriel for a moment, he seemed to be finalizing his own planes. "You need to stand back and keep the Matrix hidden. If he approaches you to get it, run to your little...vehicle. Try to drive into a tunnel or where a plane can't get to." He paused when Gabriel gave him a puzzled look. "Not me. This Decepticon will have a jet mode like me though."

Gabriel nodded slowly and eyed the Autobot. "What about you?"

Jetfire gave him an "Are you stupid?" look. Shaking his head lightly, the bot explained anyway. "I will hold him back of course. I've never faced him head on before, but I'm confident I could hold him off just fine." He paused again, considering something. "This is only if he has a hostile intent of course, which he might not."

Gabriel nodded, hoping, but not expecting the latter. Of course, to some it might seem stupid for him to be there with the Matrix if there was a chance that a hostile alien robot might come after him. Gabriel understood perfectly though. If this Decepticon was after the Matrix, a crowded dorm room wouldn't be a concern. The robot would probably just tear through it. At least out here he could run easier and with less of a chance of human death.

"So, do you want me to hide?" Gabriel asked.

Jetfire looked about ready to answer, but paused. After several seconds, Gabriel understood why. In the distance, he very faintly heard the sound of a jet's engine. The Decepticon was almost there. He turned his eyes skyward and managed to spot the small dot in the sky. It was coming on extremely fast.

"Just don't attract his attention." Jetfire hissed shortly. The robot stopped shifting now and climbed up the side of the crater, showing his full height now. With his eyes turned upward, the Autobot stood with one leg partially blocking Gabriel. The bot's anxiousness seemed to disappear in an instant. He was certainly one of those people, if you will, that knew the time and the place for certain things.

Gabriel shifted the backpack on his back, becoming increasingly aware of the awkward weight of the item inside. He could make out the features of the jet now. He didn't know what kind it was, but he knew it wasn't your average F-22, which was just about the only jet name he knew off the top of his head. It seemed stockier than an F-22 and seemed to have bigger engines for it's size.

After a few more seconds, the plane began to slow down, but not lowering to the ground to land on the road. Gabriel quickly realized that the jet was going to miss them entirely at this rate. In fact, it just kept slowing down... And slowing down... To Gabriel's astonishment, the jet stopped in midair and hovered. He blinked slowly, watching it. The large engines under its wings made sense now. The plane was some kind of hover jet.

As the jet began to lower itself, it began to transform. The cockpit, empty to begin with, flipped down and clamped onto his chest in the exact fashion that jetfire's did. Then the tail end of the plane began to shift and flip, the legs of the Transformer come out. At the same time, his head folded out from is chest, snapping into position. Then in one final movement, his arms twisted out from under his wings as he threw his weight back. The Decepticon tilted back, shutting off his engines to land with a dull thud on the dirt in front of them. The bot's eyes flickered on in a deep red light.

Gabriel immediately noted the almost cruel looking smile of the Decepticons face. He also noticed the resemblance of the Transformers face to the Decepticon symbol. His eye-sockets, or what could be compared to them, were diamond shaped. Lines beginning on each side of his face ran down to align in a triangle where his chin was. In the center of his forehead were two strips of metal that stretched upward in another open triangle. Then on each side of his head two strips of metal resembling horns.

"Starscream."

Gabriel looked up. He was surprised that Jetfire was the first to have spoken. Not only that, but his tone was even, portraying nothing.

"Jetfire." Starscream hissed, stepping forward.

At first, Gabriel tensed to bolt for his care, taking the hiss hostile.

"Oh long has it been? Two centuries?" The Decepticon hissed again.

It was the second time that he spoke that Gabriel realized that the hissing was how Starscream normally talked. His voice was just low and raspy. It wasn't a hiss, it was just how he spoke.

"Something like that. It's hard to keep track." Jetfire replied, a small smile tugging at his metal mouth. Gabriel noticed that this reply wasn't controlled, but actually housed a tone of trust.

To Gabriel's horror, Starscream stepped forward quickly, one metal arm flying out towards Jetfire. With a loud squeal of metal on metal, his hand collided with Jetfire's shoulder. He managed to dive out of the way just in time as Jetfire stumbled backward a few steps, his foot coming down right where he'd previously been.

"It's good to see you again." Starscream said, his voice portraying excitement.

Jetfire let out a small grunt and rubbed his shoulder. "Nice to see you too. I still can't believe your arm strength for such a tiny bot." Jetfire grunted, looking back at Gabriel. He'd obviously been concerned about squishing him.

Starscream chuckled lightly, the sound rasping. After a second, the Decepticon seemed to realize something. He paused and followed Jetfire's gaze. Gabriel then found himself staring into the red eyes of the Decepticon.

"You know this human?" Starscream questioned.

"It's good to enlist local help when you can." Jetfire explained, providing a simple and true explanation.

Starscream seemed to consider this before nodding slightly. "Not a bad idea." he mused lightly. Then Starscream looked back down at Gabriel. "Don't let the Autobot confuse you. I'm not tiny, he's large." The last part came out in a huff.

Jetfire grinned wolfishly at that, but seemed to drop that particular subject. "He has been quite a help, but it's not like it matters."

"Oh? Another dud planet?" Starscream questioned.

"Of course." Jetfire huffed. Gabriel noted that the Autobot was a good liar. The conversation was getting faster and he hadn't missed a beat.

"You're sure?"

Jetfire snorted softly, as if dismissing the idea. "So far all that's been on this planet are tiny energon crystals. There's not even an energy reading large enough to suggest a servo crash-landing here."

"I can see that." Starscream replied gesturing to Gabriel.

Both of them reacted. Jetfire's optics were wide for a second as they looked at Gabriel.

Gabriel was the first to react, trying not to look surprised. "Jetfire said I could keep one." he replied. It seemed to him that energon crystals weren't rare for them so it might not be unusual to say that he wanted to keep one.

Starscream seemed to be amused by this. "You humans are fascinated by collecting and categorizing things." he mused.

Gabriel blinked in confusion, still tense. It didn't seem like Starscream suspected anything, but he couldn't be sure.

"Plants, animals, minerals. Anything unknown and you scramble to categorize it." Starscream clarified, seeming only amused by his reactions.

Gabriel only managed a dull "Oh."

By then Jetfire seemed to recover and take over again. "So, are the 'Cons still after your sorry hide?" he asked.

Gabriel furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Why would his own side be after him? He made a mental note to ask Jetfire later if they managed to get out of this.

Starscream's smile twitched upward a bit more. "Thank Primus, no. They gave up three systems ago. I guess I'm not worth their time anymore."

They both chuckled lightly at that. Jetfire seemed to laugh genuinely though, although Gabriel was sure he was still nervous about the close call.

"Unfortunately..." Jetfire began on a sigh. "We can't remain here much longer." Starscream gave him a puzzled look before Jetfire continued. "You see, I didn't recognize your energy signature at first and assumed you a threat." They both seemed amused by that. "Since the kid here has been carrying around an energon signal, I figured he might be in danger and went to get him. Apparently for humans, it's not normal for a jet to pull into a parking lot."

Starscream nodded in a way that suggested he might have encountered a similar problem.

"I'm afraid they might be searching the area for a loose, unmanned jet. I haven't experienced it first hand, but I've found several references to the human policy of 'shoot first, ask questions later' principal." Jetfire explained. Gabriel realized now he was cutting the conversation off. He was getting ready to part with him.

"Understood." Starscream rasped, giving Jetfire a false salute. "Then, my friend, I hope to meet you on another planet in this barren star system."

Jetfire grunted in agreement. Now it was Jetfire's turn. As before, Jetfire stepped forward and smacked Starscream on the shoulder. It was exactly the same kind of gesture many human men would do to each other, only much harder.

Then both Transformers stepped back, Gabriel of course following Jetfire. When they were back far enough, Starscream nodded in farewell before his head folded down and the nose of the jet popped back into place. Just as his arms and legs fused back into the jet, the engines powered up loudly. A gust of air from the engines blew Gabriel's hair back.

Fairly quickly, the jet's wheels came off of the ground. Before he was even 5 feet off of the ground, Starscream's back engines fired up and shot him forward. Gabriel thought for sure he was going to hit a tree before he was high enough, but the Decepticon easily cleared the tree tops.

Just as fast as he'd come, Starscream was gone and both human and Autobot visibly relaxed.

"Think he bought it?" Gabriel muttered quietly, feeling his muscles beginning to unclench themselves.

"I hope so, but I can't be sure." Jetfire sighed.

"What if he didn't?"

"Then we're in deep shit." The Autobot grumbled, once again showing off his knowledge of english slang.

Gabriel sighed heavily and shifted the backpack again. He'd hoped the Matrix would cloak its energy, but it didn't.

Jetfire shifted again and turned his head upward. His metal brows shifted down. He was very obviously trying to make a decision. Finally he released a heavy sigh. "I suppose it's time to call Cybertron."

As he flew north along the California coast, Starscream's processor ran at full force. Something was going on and his meeting with Jetfire had proved it.

Starscream had never considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this planet might house Megatron and Optimus Prime. He'd lost all expectation for that after his second solar system. He'd thought this planet would be the same. Empty and bare of his goal.

But no. Jetfire had found something and he was sure of it.

Never before, had Jetfire been so confident that a planet was going to be empty. He had also noticed both Jetfire's and the human's reactions to the energon signal coming from the boy's backpack. He wasn't sure what was in there, but they didn't want him to notice it. It also seemed that he was trying hard to get rid of him. Usually they'd end up searching the planet together just to keep company. Not this time.

Yes, this planet would be worth searching thoroughly. He'd have to do it fast as well. Luckily, Jetfire didn't realize that he knew something was up.

After 500 years, something was finally going to change.

_"Alert, incoming message. Alert."_

Blaster looked up from the data screen in front of him. The communication line was picking up an incoming signal. With a few bored taps on the keys in front of him, he discovered it was a message from a scout. Normally a message from one wasn't unusual, just a report on how they still had not found Optimus Prime. This time however, he discovered that the bot this message had come from was a quite a famous one.

Blaster remembered the fuss that took place several cycles after The Last Great Battle. Jetfire, a very important Aerial Commander at the time, had been injured terribly in that battle. He'd been due to take over as Commander of all Aerial Autobot troops but because of his heavy injuries and the need for immediate leadership after Optimus Prime's disappearance, Jetfire's position had been passed on to the next in line. Blaster had remembered sympathizing with the bot for that, even though Jetfire acted like it didn't matter. Instead of whining about a lost job, Jetfire signed up to take on the low rank job of a Scout. He had even known at that time that he was sure to get a high ranked position on the Autobot Council, which was the temporary replacement in leadership. Just about everyone on Cybertron tried to convince him out of it, but he had left determined to bring back Optimus.

Now, the screen in front of him said that he was sending a report back to Cybertron. Blaster knew it probably was just a failed report, but it wasn't every day that a message came in from such a legend.

He pressed a button on the keypad and listened as Jetfire's voice came from the speakers.

_**"Scout Jetfire reporting back to Cybertron from planet Earth. Although my mission has yet to be completed, I'm reporting back to issue Code 386."**_

Blaster's hand slid off of the keypad as the message faded out. He found his legs suddenly trembling as he struggled to stay upright. The message...That was impossible...

He weakly pressed the button to place the message again. It repeated and he pressed it again and again, not quite believing what he'd heard.

Gathering his wits, he turned and charged out of the room. This news was important. He had to get to the council!

He charged down the hall, shoving passed bewildered Autobots going about there business. Several bots tried to stop him to calm him down, but he paid none of them any mind. He just continued to run.

Quicker than he ever expected he arrived at the council room. Standing guard by the door was a rather put off looking Bumblebee.

"Hey, Blaster you can't go in there! There's a meeting!" The yellow mech protested.

Blaster completely ignored him and rammed though the doors before he could even try to stop him.

"THE MATRIX HAS BEEN FOUND!" Blaster screamed as he burst into the room.

Immediately, every single council member turned to stare at the communications bot in utter shock.

"Impossible...." Ironhide murmured, the only one who was able to open any kind of communication.

Blaster clenched his fists and stared into the room, using the unofficial title, but one everyone in the room felt was appropriate. "Aerial Commander Jetfire located it on the planet Earth."

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I enjoyed writing the part with Blaster for some reason.

Also, just to clarify, Bumblebee was feeling put out just because he'd gotten stuck standing guard to a minor council meeting.

Code 386 is just meant to be that the Matrix was found. The code is of course so if Decepticons pick up the signal, they won't understand.

And yes, the Decepticons are chasing Starscream, but the reason won't be revealed for a while.

The next chapter should be out very soon because I'm VERY excited about it.

I actually wrote this one very quickly so I could get to writing chapter 7.

I hope everyone is enjoying it so far, thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Told you I'd update quickly!

The next chapter won't be as quick though as I'm leaving for a day and will be without a computer.

Anyway, the first part of this was very fun to write, which you'll understand why very quickly.

I don't own Transformers, Hasbro and the other companies do!

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Blurr stared in shock at the communications bot and for once in his existence, he was speechless. After 500 years, a clue had been found to Optimus Prime's whereabouts. Not only that, but sweet Primus, it was the Matrix!

Blaster stared around the room, looking at them with a look of utter shock, but with an underlying excitement. Somehow, Blurr knew the rest of the council looked the exact same way.

"He sent a report. He hasn't located Optimus yet... But he sent back Code 386..." Blaster continued, his voice trailing off, breaking the silence.

The spell seemed to be broken then as the Autobots in the room straightened up, some whispering unintelligible phrases of awe, and others quietly confirmed what they'd heard with the bot next to them.

Blurr managed to lean back against his seat again, as he'd moved forward at the news. Of course he still kept his optics trained firmly on Blaster. Only when he heard a brash chuckling coming from the bot next to him did he look away.

"So that Son of a Glitch finally did it!" Bluestreak laughed, giving the table in front of him a smack. The foul mouthed bot's amusement seemed to lighten the mood in the room though.

Blurr found himself grinning as well, turning his optics around the Council room. Everyone seemed extremely pleased at the news. The only one who seemed off was Silverbolt. The Aerial bot was grinning like the rest, but even from here, Blurr noticed the bot's tight grip on the table. Of course, the reason was easy for Blurr to figure out since he'd worked with him for the last five centuries.

Silverbolt was the Aerial Commander for all of the Autobots. After the Last Great Battle, that was to have been Jetfire's position, but due to the bot's injuries, it had been passed onto Silverbolt. Most bot's would prefer Jetfire as Aerial Commander, so Silverbolt was constantly worried about being replaced. This meant that Silverbolt was constantly threatened by Jetfire and with good news like this coming from his rival, he was sure to be angry.

Next to him, Ironhide was leaning back in his seat, grinning widely as he rubbed a cannon on his arm, something he did when excited or pleased.

In fact, each of the Council members seemed to be doing one of there little habits at this point. Wheeljack, the Head of the Science Division, was tapping his fingers along the edge of the table, something he did usually when he was itching to get to work on some new project. Ratchet, Head of the Medical Division, was sitting back, his arms crossed over his chest plates. The Head of Defense and Security, Red Alert, was fidgeting and looking a bit worried, though happy all the same. Blurr noted quickly that having an anal retentive, nervous bot as a Defense head was a good thing. Ironhide, still stroking his cannon, was the Commander of all Autobot Ground Troops. Prowl, Head Strategist and Tactician, for once had a smile on his face, but he still gripped his data pad in his hands. Silverbolt, the Head Aerial Commander, still gripped the tabletop a bit to tightly while trying to maintain a happy look. Bluestreak, Head of Communications, continued to spout off some amazed sentence littered with curse words, a strange habit for a Communications Lead. Then of course there were the twins, although they were not sitting at the table since they weren't actually council members. The two simply had great powers of persuasion and refused to be left out of these meetings, no matter how boring. Blurr always felt sympathy towards Ironhide since the two were his problem and tended to cling to him like a play-thing. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were each Commanders of their own troops and worked directly under Ironhide. The two were currently on their feet, babbling excitedly towards each other.

Then of course there was himself, Blurr. He was the Head of the Intelligence Division. He'd started out as a messenger bot, but had proved himself to be far more talented than the average Autobot. He'd quickly moved up in rank and earned him the much deserved title of Fastest Land Autobot.

"Hey Blurr! Sounds like that pain in your tailpipe is due to come home soon!" Bluestreak said, grinning at the bot next to him.

Ironhide turned to give him a look as well. "You're awfully quiet for once." he noted, still amused.

Blurr just grinned at both of them and waved a hand at them."Just-shocked-I-suppose.**"**The Autobot rattled off, talking at a barely understandably speed. The other Council members were used to it by now though. "And-when-he-does-come-home-I'll-be-sure-to-let-him-know-that-we-missed-him." Of course, Blurr rolled his eyes at that to show his sarcasm.

"Well I know that SOME of us missed him." Wheeljack interjected.

Ratchet gave him a look and pointed out "You just miss having a willing Aerial Bot to test upgrades on."

Of course at this, Silverbolt gave both of them a sour look.

"This IS a Council meeting." Prowl suddenly spoke up, looking at them all. "We all have our little... Opinions."

"You miss him too Prowl!" Sideswipe interrupted the Tactician. Sunstreaker chimed in shortly after with a "Or he just misses Optimus and his ability to control meetings."

Prowl ignored them and continued. "This brings up more pressing and immediate matters for today's meeting."

Red Alert nodded quickly in agreement, already seeming to go back to his excessively nervous self.

Ironhide raised a eye-plate and looked at Prowl. "What's to discuss? I'll be sending a group of able-bodied bots to turn the planet upside down."

"You will NOT." Prowl said firmly. "That planet has intelligent, and very possibly violent, life." He paused to peer down at the data pad in his hand. "Not only that, but it's big. If we send troops there, the Decepticons are sure to notice and send there own. We want Optimus back, but we don't want Megatron back as well."

Red Alert nodded again and added his own point. "As of now, the Decepticons are watching our space-bridges quite intently. My division is having trouble removing some of there sources." He paused to fidget and look down at the table in his own nervousness. "We might have trouble sending one Autobot!"

Prowl seemed to consider this point for a moment.

"Well then we need to send the best bot for the job." Ironhide huffed, obviously volunteering myself.

"The-fastest!" Blurr interrupted. "After-all-it's-a-race-against-time-not-an-endurance-race." Blurr grinned and puffed his chest out slightly.

"You can't be serious." Silverbolt grouched at the Autobot.

"I don't know, doesn't seem like a bad idea." Ratchet interjected.

"Hey, Prowl, what's the planet like?" Wheeljack asked, jumping in.

Prowl looked up from his data pad to eye the Scientist. "According to our lacking information." He shot Blurr a look that meant it was his divisions fault. "It has roads made by the local organics."

Bluestreak slapped Blurr on the back, jolting the smaller robot forward. "Sounds like the little glitch has himself a new mission."

Silverbolt seemed to seethe under his armor. "A plane is faster! I should go!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at him. They all knew about his issues with Jetfire. Although none of them mentioned it, it was these unstable emotions which kept them from allowing the Aerial Commander to be given that mission.

"Bolt, we already have one jet there." Ratchet said, the first one brave enough to offer a reason. "Besides, you're the Head of the Aerial Troops, you can't leave. Blurr's work can be passed to someone else."

The room filled with quiet agreement.

"So-my-work-isn't-important?" Blurr pressed, giving Ratchet a joking look.

"You know what I mean." Ratchet just huffed, brushing him off.

Silverbolt obviously knew now that whatever he said didn't matter.

Prowl then set his data pad down and tapped on the table to get the attention focused back on him. "It seems to me that sending Blurr is the most logical." he started, "Although you and Jetfire have... Issues at times, it shouldn't matter. You two won't be in close enough proximity to go on one of your rampages."

Ratchet mumbled something under his breath that sounded like "Thank Primus we haven't had to clean up one of those messes in 500 years..."

Blurr ignored him and eyed Prowl. "Why-not?"

"Because you'll be on opposite sides of the planet."

Blurr pouted slightly.

"It's logical." Prowl said, almost sounded like he was scolding him.

"I-know-I-know." Blurr said, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. "Let's-just-set-up-the-specifics-so-I-can-get-the-slag-out-of-here."

"Getting tired of our company, Blurr?" Ironhide snorted.

"I-haven't-gotten-to-really-push-my-limits-in-so-long-that-I've-got-rust-forming-on-my-aft!" A few of the bots gave him looks. "I'm-ready-to-be-of-some-use-in-the-field!"

Prowl looked like he was holding back an urge to roll his optics. Instead he picked up his data pad again and peered at it. "Fine. Your mission is to find Optimus Prime on Earth. When you do find him, you may attempt to perform BASIC repairs on him. That's all. If he needs major repairs, send your coordinates and a list of the major damages. You are to stay in contact with Jetfire, but search your separate sides of the planet. If you find a Decepticon on planet for any reason, do not engage him unless he attacks first. The less the Decepticon's know right now, the better. Understand?"

"I'm-not-the-trigger-happy-one-remember?" Blurr pointed out. Ironhide just rolled his optics at the Intelligence bot.

Prowl just shook his head and turned to look at Blaster and Bumblebee, both of whom were still standing at the front of the room, looking awkward. "One of you contact the nearest space-bridge and tell them to it ready and set the coordinates for Earth. " Then he turned back to Blurr. "You, get ready to leave immediately."

"Yes-sir." Blurr said, grinning and getting up.

"Say hi to Optimus for me!" Sunstreaker called to him.

"And if you see Megatron, whack him in the chest plate a few times for me!" Sideswipe added.

Blurr just gave a swift nod to the twins before he darted out of the room, running to get ready for his first important assignment in five centuries.

After going through the space-bridge, Blurr had been transported to the area behind Earth's only moon. According to Prowl, the species might be violent so if a random object appeared over their skies, he might be in danger, so starting behind their moon was the best idea.

Unlike most Transformers, he didn't fall into a Stasis sleep while in this form. His destination was only a few short hours away at the speed he was going so he preferred to stay awake and let his sensors examine the planet as much as he could from his distance.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much to examine and Blurr's active mind began to get extremely bored. Like his body and his speech, his processor moved at a faster than usual pace, which caused him to get bored quickly. Now, in the silence of space, all he could do was try to count the massive number of artificial satellites around the planet.

Finally, as he neared the edges of the planet's atmosphere, his sensors picked up a strange signal. Curious, he tapped into it. Immediately he was bombarded by tons of information. He noted that this strange signal was similar to a network of communications they had on Cybertron, but nowhere near that massive. Images, text, and even video ran through his processor before he finally managed to control it. Now he was actually able to sift through it, piece by piece. It was called the Internet and was not only a wealth of information, but also was apparently a source of entertainment for all ages of humans.

Of course, being who he was, Blurr began searching for something he personally wanted to know about this planet. That was of course, it's vehicles. The things he saw... It made him wonder what the engineers on Cybertron were thinking! When he got back, he vowed to share all of this with Wheeljack and force him to work on it. At first, he found his optics set on several different cars. There was the Corvette, the Porsche, the Ferrari, the Firebird, and the Lamborghini. They were all extremely fast and sleek, each one perfect for him. But then he saw it. The perfect car. He would have grinned if he'd had a mouth, but he didn't. Instead he research the car further, noting that he wasn't going to land too far from where he might scan one. With a slight change in course he'd be only a mile or two away from it.

With that, he began shifting the outside of his curled up form. When he did, he began tumbling, but it also changed his trajectory. Within minutes, he was hurtling towards the ground several miles outside of a city called Moscow in a region called Russia.

In accordance to Prowl's own calculations, the sky outside was dark as he plummeted down towards the city. He'd planned to crash into a more abandoned part of town so he wouldn't have to sneak through the countryside and then into the city before he could get all the way to the location he needed to get to. He just hoped the humans would be slow responding to a meteor crashing in one of their cities. Somehow, he doubted it.

Then he came in contact with a rusted metal roof before he smashed out the brick wall on the other side. The building was in such bad repair anyway, that it fell down around him, burying him inside his own crater.

"Slag!" he cursed out-loud, adapting his vocal processes to an Earth language. He was speaking English even though he was in an area that spoke Russian. The simple reason for that was that the cars website that he loved so much, was in that language.

Blurr attempted to wiggle slightly in his current form, pushing some of the bricks off of himself before he began to transform. In doing this, he effectively unburied himself, but ended up filthy from the debris and scratched up more than he would have liked. Now, he was not like Sunstreaker, the most anal of all Autobots over his precious paint job, but he wasn't found of damaging his personal looks either. He was only thankful that soon he'd have a shiny, sleek new form.

Adapting himself on something called a GPS and Mapquest, he was able to locate his own whereabouts and where he wanted to go. He was only about two miles from where he wanted to be, but he heard sirens in the distance which suggested his time was running out.

Jogging out of the ruined building and through an alleyway, a tight fit even for him, he turned and sprinted off down a darkened street. So far it was empty of people, but he knew that would change soon.

Prowl had ordered him to stay hidden, but Blurr new that if he wanted to get that car form, someone would have to see him. He was sure he'd get a sensor-full when he got back to Cybertron, but he found that he currently didn't care.

A short time later, he saw lights coming down the street and he hid in a side alley until they passed. Just one car of many he was sure to encounter. He didn't really mind that though. What he didn't like was how bare he felt. In the basic form he was in, he felt naked. When a Transformer couldn't change into another form, they felt as exposed and helpless as a sparkling. Blurr certainly didn't like that feeling with his ego being how it was.

Luckily, he made progress fast through the streets. After a mile and a half into his journey, only one human had seen him. Luckily that human had been heavily intoxicated though and seemed to not notice him.

Finally, he came to a street corner where he knew his luck had run out. Although it wasn't crowded, there were enough humans where there was no way he would ever make it through without being spotted. He reminded himself quickly of his goal, prayed for Prowl to go easy on him, then sprinted at top speed across the street to hide behind a building. Unfortunately, his top speed was fairly slow in this bare form.

Blurr seemed to have made it through, nearly being hit by a vehicle though, and none of the humans seemed to be brave enough to follow him. Gleefully, Blurr continued through the alley way and repeated the same process several more times with similar results. The worst one though was some male stopping his car by his foot, sticking his head out of his vehicle and spouting off a string of curses before stopping to stare bewilderedly at Blurr.

Finally, he found himself behind the car dealership he'd been looking for. He felt almost giddy now as he made his way around the side of the building to look for the cars. Much to his disappointed, he noticed several security guards as well. He should have expected this, as this kind of car was obviously a rarity.

So Blurr decided a distraction was necessary. Parked by the side of the building next to where he was standing was a rather pathetic looking vehicle. He believed the term was golf cart.

The Autobot put a hand on the back bumper of the vehicle and shoved. Without much resistance, the golf cart sped off toward the guard shack. When it passed by, now headed downhill, the guards began shouting before running off after it.

Gleefully, Blurr made his way around to the front of the building where he managed to peer into the showroom through a window. There it was. His new form. A blue Shelby Ultimate Aero Car. According to the human website, it was the fastest production car on the planet. It was perfect for him.

As soon as he spotted his in the room, he set about scanning it. His optics faded out as his processor was filled with every single bit of information about the car, from engine size to trunk space. Before he knew it, he felt his body shift downward, wheels touching pavement and his headlights flickering on.

Oh how great this new form felt!

Experimentally, he revved his engine, extremely pleased to find it purred in a steady way, but roared to a loud decibel. Without hardly letting himself adjust to himself, he let his back-wheels go, causing them to spin out before he shot off like a rocket towards the guard gate.

By then, the guards had noticed the sounds, gone back to investigate, and were stunned to find that it seemed that a car had been stolen, even though it hadn't. They immediately started screaming and waving their arms at him.

Blurr of course payed them no heed as he speed off past them and turned sharply onto the streets of Moscow.

He wasn't sure exactly where he was going, all he knew was that he needed to find open road so he could press the limits of his new form before he began his mission.

---------

Remember how I said that all these characters were going to be redesigned and weren't based off of any particular series?

I didn't lie, I promise.

The Autobots on the Council were only put in for a short time and I didn't really develop the characters because I don't know yet how much they'll be in this story.

I did feel though, that some characters should have some prominent G1 traits.

Who can resist the twins anyway?

And yes, Red Alert is a nervous reck. What's more fun than a Security Leader being so dang scared?

Each of them also do have traits that a friend and I came up with, but that might not have shown in this.

For example, Wheeljack will be easily distracted and Ironhide....Well. I'm going to try to make him perverted or at least prone to using sexual innuendo.

I'm a fan of comic relief, what can I say?

Lastly, I finally changed the name of the story!

I hope it didn't confuse anyone and I hope it's good!

Thanks for reading and remember: Reviews are always loved!


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry everyone about how long it took to write this one!

School started and it hit me hard.

Lots of homework and stuff.

Unfortunately, updates will be like this from now on.

Expect an update once every two weeks if all goes well.

Anyway, enjoy this new chapter!

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and the other companies do!

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"Hey-Jetfire!"

".....Sweet Primus, they sent YOU?"

"Nice-to-see-you-too."

"We're talking through a Com-Link."

"Same-thing. ...Spoilsport." Blurr huffed, pouting. Of course this went unseen as he was still speeding down the roads as a Shelby Super Car. Then there was the fact that Jetfire couldn't actually see him.

"What do you want?" Jetfire grouched through the Com-Link.

Blurr of course found this demoralizing. He had been sent all this way and Jetfire was crabbing at him! Then again, it was just like it used to be, which Blurr remembered enjoying. It had always been fun to ruffle Jetfire's wing-flaps, and it was just so easy to do.

"I-was-sent-to-help-you-of-course!" Blurr huffed back, putting on an offended tone.

"Why would they send a puny bot like YOU?" Jetfire asked, probably rolling his optics on the other end of the connection.

"You-really-haven't-been-on-Cybertron-in-a-while." Blurr replied. In return Jetfire made a confused grumble. "I'm-the-Head-of-the-Intelligence-Division-now." He said proudly.

"What?!"

"You-heard-me!"

"That's impossible!" Jetfire growled into the link. "Why would a bot like you get that job?"

"Well-despite-your-opinions-of-me-I-am-actually-good-at-my-job." Blurr huffed back.

Jetfire groaned on the other end. "Fine fine.... So now would you tell me what the Council is planning already?"

"Now-now~ All-in-due-time~ First-I-want-to-know-everything-about-what-happened-here." Blurr replied, his voice purring softly. He heard Jetfire choke a bit in disgust.

"Fine, but only because protocol makes me." Jetfire grunted back. Blurr just made satisfied sound.

"I landed north of a town called Sacramento during the night about a week ago, if you're familiar with earth terms yet." Jetfire sounded a bit smug about this, which Blurr ignored. "My landing was noticed by a local human named Gabriel Hale."

"I've-been-told-that-they're-violent. Had-any-problems-with-that-one-yet?" Blurr questioned, his tone slightly joking, but also knowing this was important.

"Just listen." Jetfire grouched again. "After I explained my purpose here and obtained my new form, I took him with me to look for the nearest Energon signature, which was located inside of a vent on a volcano."

As Jetfire spoke, Blurr found himself acquainting himself better with the English language that Jetfire was using. It was quite easy once you got the hang of it, but some words still made him stop and research it for a milli-second.

"I sent him inside to look and he brought the Matrix of Leadership back with him." Jetfire continued. "I asked him to keep it safe in his possession."

Blurr remained silent. He felt as Jetfire did. He could not hold the Matrix if he was given the chance and he would much prefer to hand it off to someone he trusted. Obviously, Jetfire, a bot who didn't generally do well with trust, felt enough towards the human to entrust the Matrix to him. That answered his previous question.

"I planned to continue searching with the boy instead of contacting base and possibly sharing the information with Decepticons."

"But-something-changed-your-mind?" Blurr interjected quickly.

"Let me finish!" Jetfire snapped. "It turns out, that Starscream landed on this planet as well. I met with him briefly and it seems I successfully convinced him nothing is here. I contacted the Council just in case."

Blurr puzzled over that briefly. "You-talked-to-Starscream? You-didn't-fight-him?" he questioned.

"We aren't on fighting terms currently." Jetfire grumbled.

That confused Blurr. Technically they were always on fighting terms. Not only that, but Starscream had previously been the second-in-command to the Decepticons, though it appeared he lost that position after Megatron and Optimus disappeared.

"Now explain to me what the Council is planning so we can get to work." Jetfire started again, cutting off Blurr's thought process.

"Simple! I-search-this-side-of-the-planet-and-you-search-that-side! When-we-find-Optimus-we-contact-each-other-to-get-him-and-perform-minor-repairs-if-necessary."

"So if he's almost completely destroyed we call for backup?"

"Exactly!" Blurr chirped excitedly.

"And what if Megatron is there too?"

Blurr paused after that, seeming to just realize that as well. "They-didn't-give-any-orders-on-that-subject."

"Of course not." Jetfire sighed heavily.

After that, there was silence on either side. Both seemed to realize that the reason no decision had been made was because the Council had hoped the Optimus would make the call once he was up and running again.

"I'm going to get back to work. Link me if you find anything." Jetfire said after a minute.

"You-too!" Blurr replied quickly. Jetfire only gave a grumble of acknowledgment before he disconnected his end.

Of course, Blurr being the excitably bot he was, immediately felt a sense of loneliness. He was used to it on missions of course, but he always preferred company. So he just replayed his conversation with Jetfire in hopes of distracting him from the endless road in front of him.

Something that he hadn't really noticed than caught his attention. The human Gabriel... If Jetfire had a local helping him, why couldn't Blurr have one as well?

Blurr decided then that the he could fully test the planet's internet with his new endeavor.

After hours of traveling, Blurr was getting very close to his destination. Of course his trip hadn't been that boring.

His speed apparently bothered the local police and they turned on their sirens and chased after him constantly. Blurr found endless joy in slowing down so they could ride his bumper then speeding up so fast that they had no chance of ever catching him. He would chuckle endlessly the entire time.

Now though, he kept his speed slow enough not to attract attention since he was near where he wanted to be: Manas Air Base in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. An Air Base seemed like a strange place for a Transformer of any kind to be headed to but he had a reason.

After much searching of the human Gabriel Hale, Blurr had managed to find a link to him several countries south of Russia. Jumping between Myspace and Facebook pages, Blurr had managed to track down a girl named Dena Mayes.

Dena Mayes was apparently a good friend of Gabriel who had joined the Air Force and had been stationed at the Manas Air Base a few months ago. To Blurr, this was perfect. A person in connection with the other human would make it easier to explain to and she was near where he was. Plus, snagging Gabriel's friend might tweak Jetfire, which was always a favorite sport of Blurr's.

Blurr hoped to simply drive up to the Base, introduce himself to the girl and drive off with her. To him, it seemed like a good enough plan. After all, a friend of Gabriel's must already be informed and trustworthy.

Soon, Blurr found himself pulling into the parking lot easily and without suspicion. To his luck, the Air Base was located on a normal Airport, which according to his research meant less car inspections. He slowly pulled himself into a parking spot near the building and began searching for the girl.

Of the few people standing outside of the building, none of them were her. He of course felt slightly impatient, but he just reminded himself that she had to come out eventually, so he would wait.

He did and kept a careful count of the minutes that passed. And he kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting. By the time that girl actually came out of the building, it was 8:37. He'd parked himself at 2:03.

Night had fallen by then and he had to adjust his optics with something similar to the human technology called "Night Vision." The main difference was that his night vision still contained colors, though duller than what they were during daylight hours.

The girl, Dena, walked outside of a building and turned to walk down the sidewalk that ran parallel to the parking lot. Blurr noted her features were different then the pictures he'd seen online. She still had the same green, intimidating eyes and she was still tall for a woman, probably 5' 9" in human measurements. The rest of her appearance had changed though. Her once waist length, dark brown hair was now cut to her jaw line and currently pulled back in a pathetic excuse for a ponytail that ended in a tuft of hair at the back of her neck. Her body, though no taller than the picture, was built with much more muscle. The pictures he'd seen had shown her as a slender girl with no muscle at all, while now her arms and legs bulged slightly inside her clothes with each step. Then there were her clothes as well. Usually they wouldn't make a difference, but with the uniform of a member of the Air Force, she seemed completely different.

Despite the changes, Blurr recognized her almost immediately and realized that he had to get her attention. At this rate she was just going to walk right past him! So he did what first came to mind: He turned his alarm on. When the high keening went off, she immediately turned to stare at him, probably wondering what exactly had set it off. To his dismay, as soon as she say nothing that might have caused it, she began to walk off.

"Wait!" Blurr called at her quickly. Dena turned to look at him again, of course seeing only a car and giving it a puzzled look.

"Come-here! I-need-to-talk-to-you!"

Hesitantly, she approached him, eyeing the driver's seat and probably noticing that it was empty.

"Sir? If you're having car troubles, you should get security, they can help." She said, stopping near the curb in front of the car.

"No-I-need-to-talk-to-you-Dena-Mayes." Blurr said, turning his headlights on and swiveling them until they pointed at her.

Dena stumbled back several steps in surprise, blinking her eyes rapidly from the light and shielding her eyes with her hands. "How do you know who I am?!" she asked quickly, peering at him with squinted eyes from behind her hands.

"Internet." Blurr replied curtly before continuing. "But-that-doesn't-matter-I-need-your-help."

"Who are you!? And... Where are you?!" Dena exclaimed quickly, obviously noticing the lack of a human inside the car.

"My-name-is-Blurr! And-I-am-obviously-right-in-front-of-you. Duh." Blurr snorted a bit.

Dena only looked continued to peer at him from behind her hands suspiciously before Blurr lowered his headlights a bit so she could see.

"All I see is a CAR!" Dena snapped.

"I-AM-the-car." Blurr huffed quickly.

Dena's jaw fell slightly as she took another step back. "Technically-I'm-an-Autobot-but-I-don't-think-you-know-what-that-is-either." Blurr sighed.

"You're crazy...." Dena started, shaking her head as she stepped further back. "I don't know whether you're another weird Military experiment or some prankster with a speaker, but I'm LEAVING." With that, she spun of her boot heel and took off at a run toward the door at the nearest building.

Blurr would have gone after her but there was a blasted cement block in front of his tires, which he silently cursed to the Pit. "WAIT!" Blurr shouted after her. He tried another approach quickly just as the door opened. "Call-Gabriel-Hale! He'll-explain-everything-about-me-and-all-of-this!"

The door slammed just as he shouted the last words after her. Blurr only hoped that she would call him. But if she didn't.... Well... He'd give her until morning and then he'd leave with or without her. Human or not, he had a job to do here.

Gabriel was managing a successful study session in his room for once, when his cell phone rang. Sighing in slight annoyance, he picked it up and eyed the caller ID. To his surprise, it was an old friend whom he hadn't spoken to in more than a year.

"Dena?" he questioned, putting the phone to his ear. There was no response immediately, but he thought he heard a nervous swallow.

"Gabriel? Sorry about calling ...It must be pretty early right now." Dena responded, her voice restrained by the sounds of it.

"No, no... It's fine. I'm glad you called." he said, setting his pencil down now. "I should have called you a long time ago."

"Well...There's a reason behind this... " She said, her tone cautious. "Just...Don't think I'm crazy please."

"What's wrong?" Gabriel asked, straightening. "And I won't...Trust me, I've had a few things happen recently that makes me question my sanity."

Dena paused for another long moment then, considering her words most likely. "Um... Do you know anything about..." She paused again, her voice low when she continued.

A talking car called Blurr?"

Gabriel blinked slightly and leaned forward. "Blurr?" he questioned, Dena giving a noise of confirmation. "A talking car?"

"It's crazy I know....But..." Dena quickly said.

Gabriel cut her off. "No, it's NOT crazy. That's the funny thing."

"It's not?"

"Nope. Did Blurr say he was a robot of some sort?" Gabriel asked, hoping to confirm it.

"No, but he said something about being an Autobot...." Dena said softly.

Gabriel furrowed his brow slightly. He said he was an Autobot, but was he? "Can you check to see if he has a red symbol on him without getting to close?"

"I can try." Dena said, not seeming too pleased with the idea, but seeming to toughen up again.

"Do it." Gabriel said, nodding to himself. After that, there was a pause in which he heard the phone shifted over her ear and hair and the sound of a door opening. After a few seconds, he heard the door close before she spoke again.

"He does... I can't see what it looks like from here though..." Dena said quickly.

"As long as it's red and not purple, he's an Autobot."

"What's an Autobot?" She questioned, probably surprised that he recognized the term so easily.

"In short, it's an alien robot that has come to our planet looking for something. The others, the Decepticons are here as well, but they don't care if they hurt us or not, while Autobots do."

"Aliens?!" Dena hissed into the phone. "That car is an ALIEN!?"

"Dena, it is a secret. Try not to scream it please." Gabriel said, smiling a bit to himself.

"But how is that possible?! How do you even know?!" She hissed into the phone again.

"I met an Autobot named Jetfire about a week ago and I'm helping him now." Gabriel said. "How do you know about the other Autobot anyway?"

"I don't know! He just showed up and told me he needs my help! Then I ran away and he told me to call you!"

Gabriel was a bit puzzled over that. "Well I'm not sure how he knows about me or you, but it's safe to go talk to him as far as I'm concerned. If you don't mind getting involved with a problem that started nearly 500 years ago, go talk to him."

"Problem? What problem?" Dena pressed quickly.

Gabriel just smiled to himself. "If you want to know, go talk to him."

"Thanks." Dena huffed slightly. "But... I think I will..."

"Good... If you have any trouble with him, just call me. I'll talk to Jetfire."

"Okay... And thanks..." Dena sighed. "I should have called you sooner though..."

"I'm to blame too, but this isn't the time to worry about it. You go talk to Blurr and call me later."

"Okay..." Dena sighed, still a bit hesitant.

"Don't worry. I'll talk to you later." Gabriel said, still smiling a bit. "Bye."

"Bye." She sighed into the phone.

Gabriel hung up his phone then, setting it down and watching it. The whole situation was getting stranger and stranger. A part of him was glad that Dena was getting involved though. She would be a good addition to the group, if you could call it that. Another part of him knew this was going to be dangerous though. That part, Dena might thrive through though. He certainly remembered her as a fighter and survivor.

It had been close to fifteen minutes since Dena had run off, but Blurr was fairly sure that she was going to come back. His main reason for thinking that was that she had poked her head out the door to look at him, a phone in her hand, before retreating back inside. It was apparent that she had taken his advice and called Gabriel. Hopefully he was explaining everything though.

So he waited, his engine off as he waited in the darkness for the tall girl to come outside again.

After another five minutes, she finally walked back out. It was in a suspicious manner though. She started by poking her head out, eyeing him, then stepping out one step at a time as if it made a difference. When she was fully outside, she straightened her posture, making her look almost threatening. _Almost._ Then she walked toward him in a similarly commanding way and stopping about 6 feet in front of him.

"You're still here?" she asked him, her eyes narrowed.

"So-are-you." Blurr pointed out, trying not to sound amused.

Dena gave a small sigh at that and relaxed slightly. "....So you're an alien robot...And you need my help?"

"Guidance-might-be-a-better-word-since-its-always-nice-to-have-a-tour-guide-on-a-foreign-planet!" Blurr rattled off quickly.

"You talk fast." She pointed out, almost under her breath. "But, why should I go with you?"

"Why-not?" Blurr asked quickly. "After-all-I-doubt-this-kind-of-thing-happens-every-day!"

Dena chewed on her bottom lip slightly at that. "Good point... But how do I know I can trust you?"

"I'm-not-going-to-hurt-you!" Blurr sighed in an exasperated way. "I'm-here-to-find-something-not-eat-human-flesh!"

Dena didn't seem to find the comment amusing, but she brushed it off anyway. "What are you looking for anyway...?" she asked, obviously curious.

Blurr knew then that if he hadn't been a vehicle, he would have grinned. "Get-in-and-I'll-tell-you-everything." At that, the door to the driver's seat popped open, moving up over his hood on its hinges.

Dena narrowed her eyes at him, but it didn't take her long to decide. She made her way over to the door, pausing before she actually got in. "Just to warn you... I've got a gun strapped into my waistband, so if you try anything, you'll get a hole in your metal ass."

Blurr chuckled at that, which like everything else, was done at a high speed, making it sound a bit awkward. "Sure-thing-but-don't-worry. I'm-not-the-dangerous-one!"

Dena eyed him a bit, maybe trying to figure out what he meant before she lowered herself into the seat. Behind her, the door closed and the engine revved to life. She barely had time to strap on the seat-belt before Blurr maneuvered from the Air Base at several times the legal limit.

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Wow.... This chapter was a ton of fun to write.

I don't know why, but using Blurr to annoy Jetfire pleases me to no end!

And yes, Dena is a tom boy.

Every female character I have ever made has been girly and pathetic in some way.

Not this time, Dena is going to be tough and tomboy-ish!

Also, her character will get more fun. I only showed a part of her personality this time around, but in later chapters, it should be better!

Also, thanks to all of you who have commented and favorited and alerted and such!

All of those help keep me interested in writing since it reminds me that people care.

So thanks again and thank you for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry this took so long! Although it's technically only one day late...

Had trouble actually starting to write this chapter, but once i started, I got done fast!

My muse for writing this is also back, full blast!

Today I managed to plane out every chapter from now until the end of the story!

I won't tell how many though~

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and the other companies do!

Enjoy~

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To Gabriel, one who was not prone to laughing at another's pain, the situation was getting tricky. With Jetfire stumbling through just about every hot spring or geyser and releasing a strong of curses or yelping in shock, Gabriel had to press a hand over his mouth to hold back his laughter.

The large bot then managed to lodge a toe into one of the geyser openings just as a jet of boiling water shot up at him. The bot yelled in surprise and fell back on his "aft". Gabriel couldn't stop himself from releasing a snort of laughter.

"Shut up!" Jetfire snarled, yanking his foot free. "This isn't funny!"

Gabriel grinned behind his hand and walked toward the smoking, steaming bot. "I know, we're here on business."

Jetfire gave him a hard look, but couldn't find a way to snap back at him, as he obviously wanted to.

"Maybe you should stay here while I look for the Energon source?" Gabriel suggested.

"No." Jetfire pressed firmly, narrowing his optics at the human. "My scanners indicate that the source is below sea-level. That means it's either in a sulfur pool or in a geyser and from what you're told me, either means death for your kind." The bot finished with a huff.

Gabriel patted a metal plate on Jetfire, nearest him. He immediately regretted it as the metal was still searing hot and he ended up clutching his hand under his armpit. "Then you'll just have to deal with the tripping."

Jetfire let out a low growl at that, but otherwise didn't respond.

The pair continued, weaving through Yellowstone National Park. They were currently in an area far from the normal public eye, as there were far too may geysers and sulfur pools to be safe. As it was, Gabriel was pushing it. His lungs were starting to feel raw from the sulfur, not to mention the smell, and he had several seared, red spots on his arms from the occasional sprinkle of water.

Jetfire was just managing to dent himself just about every 20 yards and was physically steaming because of the water on his overheated metal armor.

Neither was very happy with the situation and both doubted they'd find Optimus here. After all, even if 500 years had passed, there should have been at least the remnants of a sizable crater in the area. In Yosemite, such a thing would have been long ago reported and Optimus would likely have been found by curious, probing scientists. Gabriel winced at the thought. What if Optimus had already been found and was some government's well kept secret? The Autobot leader, offline or online, would be the subject of many experiments that were guaranteed to not be pleasant.

"Hm."

Gabriel looked up at the bot next to him. Jetfire had a slightly puzzled look on his face, although he hadn't stopped moving.

"What?"

"This entire park is an active volcano." Jetfire said, staring ahead.

"Excuse me?" Gabriel was stunned of course. He'd never heard that. He didn't even know how it would be possible!

"According to some online sources, this entire area is a huge volcano. If it erupts, it could wipe out this entire country, essentially."

"Then where's the crater?"

"We're standing in it. The rim of the crater is only a few feet above sea level."

Gabriel glanced down at the terrain around them, saw nothing unusual, then looked back up to question the Autobot further.

"There." Jetfire said before Gabriel could speak. His arm pointed down toward a particularly deep looking sulfur pool. "The signal's coming from there."

Gabriel made a mental note to research the volcano later as he approached the pool. He couldn't get very close though, as the stench and heat coming off of it was too much for him to bear.

"You go on ahead... I'll stay here." He said, coughing slightly into his palm.

Jetfire didn't look too pleased about getting into the water, but he only nodded slowly and took a step toward the pool. He sunk in one oversized foot at a time, the pool releasing extra steam as he did.

After only two hesitant steps from the Autobot, the ground in the pool dropped away and Jetfire splashed into the water, loosing his balance. One foot had been on the level pool bottom, but the other had only a hole to fall into. Jetfire pulled himself up, as he'd fallen on his face on the other end of the pool. He was very obviously standing in a hole of some sort because the sulfurous water reached up to his cockpit windows on his chest.

"What the slag....?" Jetfire cursed slightly. His arms began moving around in the water, looking for a ledge. He found one and yanked himself out of the hole with about as much grace as a sopping wet robot could manage. Turning around, he shoved his head back into the water, trying to peer down into the hole.

Gabriel wondered just how much the bot could actually see through the murky water. Jetfire might have some sort of optic adjustion for it, but he couldn't be sure.

From there, Jetfire began easing the rest of his body into the hole. As soon as his feet were the only thing sticking above the surface, he started to kick around. Gabriel winced and stepped out of the way of the flying water, wondering if he'd gotten stuck.

Suddenly, the jet engines attached to the sides of his legs swiveled downward before reattaching themselves firmly. The only difference was that the engines now fired in the opposite direction. Gabriel guessed what the Autobot was planing just second before it happened.

The engines roared to life, firing downward towards the water, the water hissing violently as it was heated up even more. The extra lift managed to pull Jetfire halfway out of the hole before he pulled the rest of his body out by hand, his engines shutting off.

Gabriel watched as the Autobot shook himself off, wading out of the pool. He noticed that Jetfire was clutching something in one hand. If that was what the source of the Energon signal was, then they'd failed again. Neither of them really thought that Optimus would be here somewhere, but it was still a bit of a disappointment.

"Is that it?" Gabriel asked, pointing to his hand.

Jetfire glanced down at his hand, before nodding silently.

"What is it?"

Jetfire opened his hand and held the small, box-like object in his fingers near the boy. To Gabriel, it was about the size of an old Windows desktop computer. It looked like it had been torn out of a large machine because each side of the box had frayed and ripped wires sticking out of each end.

"This is Optimus's communication processor. If this was ripped out during his battle... It explains why he couldn't contact Cybertron." Jetfire sighed slightly. "There's still some energon in it, which is why we picked up the signal."

Jetfire set the processor down in front of were obviously going to take it with them, so he'd most likely be expected to somehow get it into his cockpit. Gabriel held back the urge to groan as Jetfire started to transform.

Now he had to figure out a way to get himself, the Matrix, and the processor all up into the already too-high door to Jetfire's cabin. It was going to be tricky.

There was far to much ice. Far,** far** too much. This place, Canadia, scratch that, it was called Canada, was too cold for his liking. Starscream silently cursed that fake Wikipedia article that said this country was a pleasant temperature year round. It was also the same source that had said it was called Canadia.

Shaking off his petty hatred of whatever spammer had screwed the page up, the Aerial Decepticon focused once again on his task at hand.

After his meeting with Jetfire, he'd gone off to search the planet thoroughly. He had his suspicions, but he knew nothing for sure.

Prior to researching all the Energon signals in the area, Starscream had set off to find the nearest one that seemed most likely to hold his goal. That place had been a good sized signal coming from Canada. In a glacier. Ugh, he hated ice.

On several planets, he'd been caught in a northern area during what was equivalent to winter and had gotten his circuits and joints frozen solid. In one extreme case, he'd been put offline for the entire season because of it!

He much preferred the hot planets, even if they occasionally melted his wire casings. At least he could still function in extreme heat. Unfortunately, this was where he had to search now.

Starscream flew lower over the glacier. His scanners said he'd be near the area in about a mile, which would go by very quickly at this speed.

Judging by the looks of things, it was also buried deeply in the ice. Great. He'd have to waste precious energy digging out what might be nothing special. Oh well, he had to do it.

Gradually slowing down and circling over the area he need to get to, he kicked on the booster's under his wings so he could descend onto the ice sheets safely.

The moment his wheels touched the ice, Starscream's entire body flinched instinctually. While it was hardly the worst he'd faced, it certainly wasn't pleasant. He quickly shifted his form, crouching back on his heels as he assembled his body parts. Unfortunately, as soon as he stood out, he felt the ground disappear under his feet. his weight shifted too quickly and he found himself parallel to the icy surface before colliding into it with a loud crash. He'd slipped on the ice! How was he that clumsy?! Clenching his hands into fits, he pushed himself up off of the ice, but quickly found himself struggling for balance again. This time he landed on his face in the ice.

Starscream cursed the frozen liquid to the pits before deciding on a better idea. Now he pushed himself up so he was sitting on his aft in the ice. He planned to slide over to the nearby area where the signal was coming from.

With a few scoots, he found himself a few yards from the source, though he couldn't see it. His sensors said it was still several feet beneath him. It was an obvious job for the cannons on his arms. When he shifted into his normal mode, the heavy engines under his wings, used to make him hover, transferred onto the tops of his arms. Now, he aimed them down at the ice. His left arm folded backward into the cannon, completing it before it started to hum to life. A red glow built up in the back of the barrel slowly, the bot charging it for a heavy attack. After several moments, he let the shot fly out of the barrel of the gun. The shot, a glowing red fireball, held together by a plasma center, smashed into the ice, instantly melting through it. Starscream of course slid across the ice a great distance from backlash, which he was not pleased at all about.

He shoved himself back toward the crater in the ice he made. The hole was nearly seven feet deep from his estimates. The fire had melted it mostly, so the hole was filled with water. In the bottom of the pool though, he saw what he was looking for. He couldn't see exactly what it was, but he knew that was the source. All he saw from the object were a few wires sticking out of the ice at the bottom of the pool.

Starscream pointed his cannon back down into the hole, firing off much small fireball that would have been just enough to melt the ice around the object. He was right.

Flipping his arm back out and deactivating the cannon, Starscream leaned into the hole, reaching for the object. He snagged the small object between two fingers and pulled it carefully out of the puddle.

Upon examination, he recognized the piece of wreckage almost immediately. It was Megatron's optic sensor. Well, it was one of the two. The unlit red bulb and the torn wire components hanging out the back were lifeless and dull looking, but it represented a hope for him. This proved it. They were here. Optimus and Megatron had to be somewhere on this planet.

Grinning to himself, Starscream stored the delicate piece in the cockpit on his chest. Part of him wondered if it had been Optimus's doing that had ripped the optic from it's socket, or if it had been the entry into this planets atmosphere. He doubted the Autobot leader would do something like that, but he couldn't be sure.

Now that he'd found this area's source of energon, he had to keep searching.

With an Autobot here, one who obviously already knew what this planet held, he had his work cut out for him. It was turning into a race against time.

Well, Blurr was certainly enjoying having company. Especially since his company had about the same amount of patience with him that Jetfire had. It made things interesting.

"Yeah... So I'll be gone at least a few days... It might be more." Dena sighed into the phone, lounging in Blurr's front seat. Blurr hummed impatiently. She'd been on the phone for too long. He wanted company.

Because of the noise though, Dena kicked him on his dashboard. He shut up and silently wondered how she'd managed to flex her leg up that far and around the steering wheel. The girl certainly had some impressive skills.

"No, it's not a family matter... Let's just call it downtime. Yeah, vacation days." Rolling her eyes slightly Dena muttered a goodbye to what Blurr assumed was her boss in some way, before snapping the cell phone shut.

"You just won't give me any peace will you?" Dena huffed at him.

Blurr would have grinned if he'd had a mouth. "Nope!" he chirped.

Dena shook her head and turned the radio up slightly. Almost immediately, Blurr started to rock to the beat under her. She was obviously resisting smacking him or telling him off by the way her lips were pursed. He held back a chuckle to keep her from scuffing up his dashboard with her boots more.

"So, how much farther is this signal?" she asked.

"Not-much-farther! Just-around-this-bend-actually!" Blurr replied happily, taking the turn on a corner much to fast for Dena's liking, as she held onto the chair from both sides.

Blurr loved open roads, because he could kick his engine into high gear and fly off down the pavement. No way could he do that here. They were on a curvy mountain road with cliffs on one side and a rocky incline on the other. Now, that wasn't to say he didn't love driving on mountain roads either. He just couldn't take off like he usually did.

Just then, a large, crystal blue lake came into view. Blurr heard Dena gasp lightly as she saw it. It was just one of the many lakes that dotted the Tian Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Luckily, this was also the one where the Energon signal was coming from. Well, not so much the lake, as one of the water falls that connected into it. Blurr suspected that the waterfall they were looking for had probably been shaped by what had crashed there, whether it was Optimus or just some piece of scrap that happened to contain energon.

"Wow..." he heard Dena murmur in awe. She was still stunned by the view, even though they had more important things to do.

"Back-to-business!" Blurr reminded her. The girl pried her eyes from the view and looked down at the symbol on Blurr's steering wheel, as she often did when speaking to him.

"Okay, but explain to me again what we're doing?"

"We're-going-to-the-source-of-the-energon-signal-which-seems-to-be-in-a-waterfall-near-the-lake-according-to-my-sensors!"

Dena sat up in the seat and peered around the edges of the lake that she could see. After a few seconds, she sighed and shook her head. "I don't see it."

"That's-because-it's-just-to-the-left-of-us!" Blurr explained as they took a right turn, descending farther into the lake valley. It was after that turn that a clearing could be seen on the left side of the road farther up. There was also a bridge, which indicated that the waterfall was up ahead and the water went under the road.

Within seconds, Blurr pulled off to the side of the road, encountering a chained set of bars that was used to prevent cars from driving closer to the waterfall.

"Well now what?" Dena asked, noticing the block.

"Get-out!"

"What?" Dena blinked at him, confused.

"Get-out-so-I-can-change! I-told-you-we're-called-Transformers-for-a-reason!" Blurr huffed, like it was obvious.

Dena nodded, furrowing her eyebrows though. Unbuckling her seat belt, she opened the car door and got out. Blurr opened the door of the other side of his body before he began to transform.

At first, only the back end of his car mode began to move. The parts twisted and shifted, beginning to separate into four distinct segments. Two of those, shifted up, reconnecting themselves securely near his front wheels. Arms began to take shape from those segments. As the back segments began to take the shape of legs, his tail lights twisting to the front to rest under what would be his knees. He pushed himself up then, as the top of his body began taking shape. The entire front section of the car began to break into several pieces, not moving far, but just opening up onto his chest. His head came out from under his hood, which bent down over his head, forming what looking like a helmet. His car doors stayed extended on his back, looking similar to wings.

Dena gaped at him, tensing up and automatically putting a hand on the weapon at her hip. He knew she wouldn't hurt him, but he suspected that was just a habit for her.

"I-like-this-new-form!" Blurr said then, eyeing himself. As short of a bot as he was, the form made him look very sleek. He had all of his lights on the front of his body, which would be helpful in the dark, he had wheels that he could retract under his heels to skate on, and he even had a glass visor, only a slim strip of glass, that flipped down over his blue optics.

"Aliens robots... Right..." Dena groaned, as if remembering something. She turned away from him then and walked around the road block, toward the waterfall. "Let's go, we're wasting time."

Blurr had to admire her work ethic. He hummed slightly to himself and hoped over the low road block, following his human companion towards the waterfall.

"So where is the signal exactly?" she asked after a minute of hiking.

"Just-behind-the-falls." He responded, checking his scanners again.

She gave a nod and examined the falls. "I don't think you can fit behind there. I can see a hole, but it doesn't look big enough for you."

Blurr glanced down at her, then looked at the waterfall. She was right. "Then-you-go-in!" he suggested.

She gave him a pointed look, but nodded. "What am I looking for?"

Blurr stopped on one side of the waterfall. They'd made it to the base, but now Dena would have to make her way back into the small cavern behind the falls.

"Anything-that-looks-suspiciously-unearth-like-and-looks-like-a-piece-of-alien-technology!" Blurr said. Then he paused, considering something, before he added "Preferably-a-large-blue-bot-though!"

Dena raised an eyebrow at him.

"Larger-than-ME!" He huffed. Dena gave him a triumphant grin. She knew he was small compared to the other bots. She'd gotten that off of him.

Dena than turned back to business and walked toward the pool at the base of the waterfall. There was a sign that said no swimming, but she ignored it and waded in.

"At-least-my-chest-plates-are-the-correct-proportion..." Blurr huffed quietly to himself.

Before he even realized where it had come from, a rather large, wet rock smacked him hard across the chest. He stumbled back out of surprise and turned his optics on Dena. Apparently, she'd heard him. The human girl was giving him the most furious glare he'd ever seen.

"Yes, I know my breasts are small, but I don't need to hear that from an alien ROBOT!" she shouted at him, before turning in a huff and moving quickly towards the waterfall.

Blurr held back a snicker. He'd learned quickly in his few hours with Dena that she was extremely sensitive to her undersized chest-plating. He teased her about it, but he knew he shouldn't. It probably hurt to hear it from another human, but she just seemed to get into an angry rage when he mentioned it.

Dena quickly disappeared behind the waterfall then. Blurr waited patiently for several minutes, waiting for the girl to return.

When he heard the splash of her wading back through the water, he turned to spot her carrying something. It was obviously heavy, so it was mostly held down below the water as she came toward him, grunting every so often.

"What IS this?" she asked through clenched teeth.

Blurr wasn't sure what it was himself, at least not until she dumped it on the rocky bank for him to see.

If it was possible for a robot to pale, Blurr would have turned as white as a ghost. As it was, his optics dimmed visibly, the strength seeming to drain from his limbs as they went slack.

"No... Impossible..." Blurr murmured under his breath, not fast for once.

Dena frowned and watched him before looking at the object she had found. It was only a black, roundish object, but to Blurr it was extremely important. It was essentially what had just killed off all hope he'd had over the last 500 years.

It was Optimus's empty Spark Chamber. He was _**dead**_.

"He's gone..." Blurr said, lowering himself down on his knees to pick up and examine the Spark Chamber.

"Who is?! What is that thing?!" Dena exclaimed at him. Blurr's sudden attitude change had obviously startled her and alerted her that something was very wrong here.

Blurr set the Spark Chamber down in front of her again, his face falling. "It's Optimus's Spark Chamber... It's like... A robot's heart."

Dena immediately stared at it. "So that means without it... He's dead..."

Blurr nodded. "Megatron must have ripped it out in their battle... Optimus lost."

Dena seemed to sober as well, her eyes turning down toward the dead Spark Chamber.

After so long, hoping that there was a chance... Now what?

Shockwave walked emotionlessly towards the main Space Bridge in the Decepticon headquarters. On each side of him was a line of loyal followers. More specifically, they were Megatron's followers, just waiting somewhat patiently for their leader's return. For now, they would follow his orders though.

After Megatron disappeared, his second-in-command took over, but most Decepticons hated him, so they over-threw him. They placed Shockwave into the position of leader instead. He'd taken it, not gladly, but with the knowledge that he could keep the Decepticons in working order until Megatron returned. Just as well, he'd sent out scouts in search of their leader.

Now he suspected, it wouldn't be the scouts that found him. It would be him.

Over the last week, he'd been informed of unusual Autobot behavior. A strange message had been intercepted from a scout named Jetfire. Even the Decepticons knew of this Autobot and his post-battle struggles. Although he hadn't been able to break the code, Code 386 in specific, he suspected it was important, because they'd never intercepted that kind of coded message before. Even stranger, they had sent the Head Intelligence Autobot, Blurr, out to Earth, the same planet Jetfire had sent his message from.

Upon closer examination, he'd been able to scan the planet of Energon sources. One was almost constantly moving and was usually following the energy signature of the Autobot Jetfire.

After 500 years, Shockwave was now growing to believe that the planet Earth held the body or remains of their leader, Megatron.

Now he had an important job on his hands. One he couldn't trust to anyone else. So he'd put Soundwave, his second-in-command, in charge of his post while he was gone. He planned on seeking out Megatron on this planet himself.

As he stepped toward the Space Bridge, now only a few feet from what could be considered the opening to one of the holes in the universe, he contemplated the last detail in the puzzle. Starscream, Megatron's previous second-in-command, was currently searching Earth. He'd seen his energy signature while watching Jetfire's. He knew he had to beat Starscream to Megatron or it would truly be over.

As Shockwave plunged himself through the Space Bridge, he set coordinates for the most likely Energon signal on the planet to contain his leader: The largest mountain range on the planet.

------------------------

Just want to say, that fact about Yellowstone park being a volcano is true.

Felt like including it because it was interesting.

My dad read it out of Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Nearly Everything."

Apparently signs that this thing could erupt include the following: Geysers, earthquakes, hot springs. Essentially everything that is Yellowstone.

It supposedly blows every....20,000 years? Might be 40, 000, but either way, we're supposedly like 50 years late for the next one.

Don't get scared, but I thought it was a cool fact.

Yes, Starscream has changed a bit in personality.

That is because the novelty of the planet has worn off and now he's all business.

And poor Blurr... It made me sad to make him act sad over that, but... Well he would've found out eventually.

Yes. Shockwave is indeed a badass. As for why I chose to bring him into the story, it's simple: There are NO Decepticons that have any real personality or importance in any series.

There's Megatron, there's the Seekers, there's Shockwave, and there's Soundwave.

Seriously. There's not much to choose from.

I wouldn't chosen Soundwave, but he always gets love and attention. What about poor Shockwave?

Anyway, that's all!

The next chapter might end up being shorter than this and might be out sooner, but don't hold me to that!

Thanks for reading, reviewing, and alerting this story!


	10. Chapter 10

First of all, I want to apologize that this chapter far shorter than I originally intended, though it's still a good length.

There is an explanation at the end of the chapter as to why.

I can't show you yet, for fear of spoiling the chapter.

Also, the Shockwave part of this story was actually painful to write.

For some reason it was just hard and I couldn't get myself to concentrate on it.

I hope it doesn't sound too forced!

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and those other companies do!

-------------------

Needless to say, Shockwave had done his research on the planet. As he was designed, he was always one to look before he leapt. Due to this, he wasn't surprised in the least when he encountered the strange signal, called the internet, not long after he entered the planet's atmosphere.

He'd learned prior to coming that the humans had created this useful tool, but he didn't know the exact details of it. From Cybertron, he was able to pick out the signal, but he wasn't able to access it.

Instead he was a bit annoyed. He learned quickly that while there was a great deal of information on the internet, there were also many blocks. Things like passwords and codes were needed to bypass certain areas to access some more interesting information. One of such web sites was the United States military data base. Although accessible from the web, you needed an endless number of codes to dig into the depths of it. Unfortunately, Shockwave quickly learned that information would be of great use to him.

It seemed as if the country was greatly advanced in Flight Warfare. Not to say any of the other countries weren't just as advanced, but the United States seemed to have a number of unnecessary hidden agendas pertaining to it. Then there were the ones that weren't hidden.

Within his research, Shockwave discovered the perfect vehicle match for him in size and capability. Unfortunately, he could not access one of the vehicles to scan it, which annoyed him slightly. The plane that he wanted to scan was located only within the United States borders and there were very few even within their borders. He had neither the time nor ability now to change coarse to land anywhere near one of the planes.

The non-metaphorical gears in Shockwave's processor turned as he searched for a way around this dilemma. It didn't take long to work out the solution.

While the U.S. Air Force data base did have a strong defense grid, Shockwave was sure that it held the exact specifications and details of the plane. If he could access that information, he would have everything he needed to continue on his mission.

Shockwave was never brash about anything, always planning ahead throughly before doing anything. So before actually attempting to hack into that system, he prodded around it's edges. He discovered weaknesses in the system that his superior programing could easily override. He had found a backdoor, so to speak. This backdoor was actually a small glitch in the security system that pertained to a military project almost 40 years old. By worming his way through that, he gained easier access through to more recent programs. Each file he managed to break into brought him closer to the blueprints he needed.

_**There.**_ He copied the file into his systems as soon as he found the right file. Of course his foreign signal alerted the computer that something was wrong. It was one thing to slid through files undetected, but it was another to take something.

With his prize safely tucked into his processor, Shockwave pulled himself out of the Data Base before the system had any chance to backlash on him.

Shockwave checked his sensors again to find out his exact position of decent into the his satisfaction, he discovered he was at a near perfect cruising altitude for a plane, although he was descending fast. Without any further hesitation, he used the information to force the change on his body.

While still a falling chunk of metal, Shockwave's form began to twist and shift. At first he just managed to force a spin on his body as pieces of metal twisted and jutted out, but soon recognizable parts began to show. Sleek black wings emerged as jet engines assembled themselves on the rear end of the body. Once fully transformed, the B-2 Spirit Bomber disappeared off of every radar in the area.

Shockwave's choice in aircraft was mostly for the plane's superior stealth capabilities. Like this, no one would notice his disappearance into the Himalayas. Not even the Autobots.

Kicking his engines into gear, the thin plane steadied himself at the perfect flying altitude, locking his sensors on that faint energon signal on the distant horizon.

Blurr found it hard to believe that Dena could sleep at this point. The girl certainly had a hard head, since every few minutes, her entire body would jump up off of the seat and her head would slam into his window. Off-roading in a car meant for a flat open road was sure to mean bumps and that wasn't including the fact that they were in the largest mountain range on this planet.

This was their third day of traveling off the road. They hadn't managed to go very far, which wasn't surprising, but they were getting closer. They only had one more mountain to go around, but there was bad news. It seemed that the dirt path they were on, covered mostly in snow as of now and probably used only by very daring hikers, was slowly disappearing underneath them. He knew that in the next few minutes he'd have to transform and find a new path or they'd just walk the rest of the way. Luckily, they'd stopped to get Dena the supplies necessary to keep her frail human system online in the harsh climate.

After finding Optimus's empty spark chamber, which was in the front seat next to Dena, he'd radioed Jetfire. They agreed to meet up at the last signal, which was located in the Himalayan mountains. Blurr had kept his newly discovered knowledge to himself for now though. This was something that he needed to tell Jetfire in person. Besides, they still needed to recover Optimus's body and probably bring back Megatron's body if they could.

With Blurr's head-start and Jetfire's alternate mode, they were set to meet up fairly soon. Jetfire was currently just entering into the mountain range, so if the weather held, he'd be there in about an hour. By that time of course, Blurr would be walking.

After a few more minutes of scrapping the bottom of his chassis across the rocky, slopping, human sized path, he pulled to a stop.

"Dena-wake-up." Blurr said, shaking her seat a little. Not long after his discovery of the spark chamber, he'd regained his fast talking ways. Like any good soldier, he mourned, but he had to bounce back quickly. He was one of those bots who had accepted early on that Optimus was probably gone for good, but had retained hope anyway. The discovery had hurt him, but he was mostly back to himself. Of course, he'd sobered up a bit and hadn't been as happy as normal. It was all business now. Jetfire, on the other hand, had never lost his hope. Optimus hadn't only been his leader, but also his good friend. It had hurt on a more personal level for the Aerial bot and with the solid knowledge of his death, Jetfire would be sure to be hurt even worse.

Dena batted a hand in the air, clenching her eyes shut a bit. Blurr suspected that this was some futile tactic to ward him off from waking her up.

Blurr tried again, this time dropped her seat all the way back so she was jolted awake. She sat up in shock and looked around for the offending party that had knocked her awake. "What was that for?!"

"You-wouldn't-wake-up." Blurr stated, pulling the chair back up.

Dena groaned softly and ran a hand through her short hair. It was a futile attempt at smoothing it, as her constant bouncing in the seat had mused it up to a point where only a hot shower could straighten it. "Why do I need to wake up?" the girl muttered crossly, even as she studied the area around them, only now realizing they were stopped.

"We-have-to-walk-until-we-find-a-new-path." Blurr explained. "Which-is-unlikely-anyway."

Dena sighed lightly, but nodded. She'd known this was coming and was the kind of person who knew complaining wouldn't do any good. Straightening up, she tightened the laces on her boots and yanked her pants legs down over them. Then she zipped her jacket up to her chin and snagged her backpack off of the floor by her feet. When Blurr opened his passenger side door for her, she swung her legs out and stood up in the shallow snow.

Blurr transformed then, spinning his wheels to shake the crusted snow off of them. "Ready-Dena?"

The human female gave a short nod, tightened the straps on her backpack, and then walked on ahead of the blue Autobot.

"I HATE it when you do that!" Gabriel groaned, letting himself dangle limply in Jetfire's hand. Once again, the B-1 plane had thrown him out, transformed, and caught him. Something he'd expressly asked him NOT to do.

"It's not like I can land normally here!" Jetfire growled back, eyeing the slightly green looking human in his hand.

Gabriel just gave him as fierce a glare as he could manage, which was fairly pathetic. He was to busy trying to control his racing heart to do any better.

Jetfire mumbled something about untrusting organics as he brought his hand down and gently slid Gabriel off of his palm and into the snow.

The cool snow felt good to him in this state, but he knew he shouldn't stay laying down like that. Hypothermia was a real danger now, as was the lack of oxygen this far up, which he was beginning to notice through a few experimental gulps of air.

"So... Where are they?" Gabriel asked, panting. Jetfire was giving him funny looks, probably because of how he was reacting.

"Just down that ridge. If we yelled to them, they could probably hear us." Jetfire replied, checking the signals.

"Don't." Gabriel pressed quickly. When Jetfire gave him a quizzical look, he explained. "Avalanches can be caused by sound. Let's not risk it." He knew, of course, it took quite a bit of sound to cause an avalanche of any measure, but with a giant alien robot with him, he refused to take the chance. "Besides, they'll be here soon enough."

Jetfire shook his head slightly and sighed, a very human gesture in nature. The large bot then planted himself against a rather large rock, sitting down in wait for the last two members of their makeshift group.

Gabriel was excited to be able to see Dena again. They hadn't spoken since high-school, not counting the phone call a few days ago, let alone visited. She was probably the same person she had been back then, but he still had a slight worry that they might not be as close as before. He shook off the feeling quickly, knowing that soon enough, he'd find out for himself.

"And here we go..." Jetfire mumbled from his perch on the rock, arms folded over each other. A quick check to the downward slope next to where they were revealed the top of another bot could be seen approaching.

Gabriel had been warned of Blurr's fast-talking, hyper active, and annoying tendencies, so he immediately got Jetfire's mumbled phrase.

Slowly, more of the blue face came into view, a glass visor covering the bot's blue optics. As the mouth can into view, Gabriel saw that it wasn't pulled up in a grin, as he'd expected from Jetfire's description of the Autobot,

Jetfire seemed puzzled by this as well, but said nothing. The two just stared at each other with mutually serious looks, looking almost like they could read each other's minds.

"Gabriel!"

Looking toward the sound of the voice, Gabriel saw Dena jogging up the slope toward him, a grin plastered to her face as she waved an arm at him. He returned the grin and stood up from his place on the ground.

Without any hesitation on her part, she came up and latched onto him in a hug. He was almost surprised by the forward gesture, but then remembered it was Dena, and he returned the hug. It was merely a gesture of friendship and she was a fairly forward person.

"How was the drive?" He asked her, releasing her from the hug and grinning.

She made a face. "Bumpy."

"Not-my-fault." Blurr interjected. Dena stuck her tongue out at him.

Gabriel turned his attention to the blue bot that stood behind Dena. He was pretty small for what he'd known Transformer's to be. He was only about half of Jetfire's height and width.

"Well it certainly wasn't my fault." Dena quipped.

Blurr looked ready to respond, but Jetfire cut him off. "There is work to be done."

The smaller bot nodded shortly and looked down at Dena. When she looked up at him, both of there faces fell a bit as someone passed silently between them.

"What?" Jetfire pressed, seemly uneasy being out of what ever they were silently communicating.

"What-did-you-find-in-that-park?" Blurr asked, evading the subject. Both Gabriel and Jetfire noticed the shift, but ignored it.

"Optimus's communication processor. It looks like it was ripped out." The Aerial Autobot replied simply. "What did you find?" His optics narrowed slightly as he looked down at the small bot.

Gabriel noticed Dena pat Blurr's leg gently and him looking down at her in a look of gratitude. Something was strange here.

"We found..." Blurr began, his voice a normal pace now as he considered his words. "We found Optimus's spark chamber."

The wings on Jetfire's back whirred as they extended nearly straight up. "His spark?! Is it...?!"

"It's gone. I'm sorry. There's nothing left. He's dead, Jetfire." Blurr explained slowly.

Gabriel's eyes widened slightly. His spark.... Gone... And Optimus dead? How could that be though? Jetfire had been searching the universe for five centuries! It couldn't have been for nothing!

"PRIMUS!" _**BOOM.**_

The vibrations under Gabriel's feet nearly knocked him on his backside. It felt like dynamite had gone off next to him. At first that seemed the only logical explanation.

_**BOOM.**_

Jetfire again fired off one of his arm cannons, straight into the cliff face, effectively shattering a layer of rock.

"HE CAN'T BE DEAD!"_**BOOM.**_

"JETFIRE-CALM-DOWN!" Blurr shouted at him. It didn't do anything.

_**BOOM.**_ This time it was a snow covered tree that shattered into a thousand pieces.

Jetfire re-aimed his cannon, this time at a peak far above them. The grief-stricken bot had no idea of the danger that lay in that, he'd only been aiming his cannon at random in a desperate attempt to ward off his unstable emotions.

_**BOOM.**_

"GABRIEL!" Dena's scream.

He turned to look at her and maybe see why her voice sounded so scared. Instead, all he saw was a blue flash. In an instant, that blue flash covered Gabriel, knocking him backward. He was not being crushed, but Blurr's blue chassis now hovered above him, the bot's blue arms stretched out around him to provide more cover.

"BLURR!" Again Dena, this time more muffled.

Gabriel clearly heard a series of pained grunts from over him coupled with the sound of rocks scraping across a metal surface.

Jetfire had blasted rocks loose above them, causing an avalanche of solid rock to fall down on him. He would be dead if Blurr hadn't acted in time.

"Blurr?" Protected in the darkness by Blurr's chest plates, Gabriel couldn't tell if he was okay.

"I'm-okay." Blurr replied quickly. "Just-scratched-up-a-bit." Slowly the bot sat up, causing some of the rocks to slide off of his back into a pile around him. As he said, the bot seemed to be okay aside from a few dents that Gabriel could see from here.

"Oh my god..." Dena gasped from behind Blurr. She looked pale with fear, probably because two of her friends had nearly been crushed to death in front of her. "You're okay right...? Both of you?"

Gabriel nodded at her and gave her a small reassuring smile, as did Blurr. "Yeah... Thanks to Blurr."

"I-was-just-doing-what-was-right." Blurr said, brushing it off. The bot's gaze came up from Gabriel to peer behind him.

As he did the same thing, he saw his point of interest. Jetfire. The stricken Autobot was staring at the two of them in horror. "I'm sorry....I didn't mean...."

"It's okay." Gabriel pressed. "You didn't mean to. You were upset."

"That's no reason to endanger my comrades... My online comrades." Jetfire sighed heavily. The pain was obvious on his face and for Gabriel, it was painful to watch.

"You-shouldn't-beat-yourself-up-like-it's-your-fault."

Jetfire just stared blankly at the smaller Autobot. "No, but I can grieve like it was my fault."

"Grieve-later." Blurr said. Suddenly, his expression turned serious, rather than consoling. "I-understand-how-you-feel-but-right-now-we-still-have-our-orders. Dead-or-alive-we-must-retrieve-his-body."

Jetfire's fists clenched, causing a soft metal-on-metal squeal. "Fine."

"Even if you need to grieve, your duty comes first." Dena added, her tone soft, but her face taking on a serious set.

"I get it." Jetfire grunted. "Let's just go. I don't like being lectured by sparklings."

Gabriel held back a small smile. At least a small part of Jetfire could move past this. As harsh as it did sound, Dena and Blurr were right. Grieving emotionally was something that couldn't be stopped, but being able to control it when it was needed was important.

"Let's-go-then." Blurr said, walking toward Jetfire, patting the back of his shoulder roughly with a palm and he walked past him, Gabriel and Dena following behind him.

The trio started their hike up the side of the mountain, Jetfire walking behind the humans and Blurr in the lead. The walk was quiet, not because of the slight tension that hung in the air, but because no one could really find anything appropriate to say at the time.

When they climbed up the last slope, the ridge above them being the location of the signal, someone finally spoke.

"This is it." Jetfire grunted half-heartedly.

Blurr nodded silently in response, his eyes fixed on the ridge they were ascending.

Upon seeing the scene over the ridge, Gabriel's heart jolted a bit, the beginnings of adrenaline trickling into his bloodstream.

The side of the mountain was almost bowl shaped or like a thumb indentation pressed into the rock. It was covered with mostly untouched snow. At the very end of the indentation though, the snow had been moved. Someone had been digging and very recently.

"I see you Autobots have finally managed to locate the source of the energon signal."

A robot stepped out from behind a rock near the dug up snow, cannon-arms warmed up and ready. One red eye stared back at them.

-------------------

Here's the reason why this chapter shorter than intended: I made a mistake.

When I design my characters, I actually write out a profile for them, starting first with their alternate mode.

When I made Shockwave, I decided on the B-2 bomber because it fits him perfectly with the stealth and such.

So I made him and I wanted to have him drop onto a military base, scan one, destroy the base simply because he could, and then leave.

Then I realized he needed to land near the Himalayas, so I thought I'd have him destroy the Manas Air Force Base, where Dena was stationed.

The night before I started writing this, I remembered a problem: B-2's are only used in America, and thus he could NOT land anywhere near where he needed to be and scan one.

Although I did discover that they have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan to drop bombs, but I don't think they land anywhere near those areas.

So the reason this is short is because I had to take out the scene of Shockwave destroying a base.

Also: I enjoyed Jetfire's hissy fit. It was awesome to write.

Hopefully the next chapter will be out early, but no guarantees!

Reviews are always loved and thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Please don't kill me.

Yes, I know it's a week late, I'm so sorry!

I got pretty lazy and didn't start writing it until Monday last week and it took me all week to churn this out!

I worked hard though and I'm pretty satisfied with it!

This was 11 sheets of notebook paper front and back!

Anyway, enjoy!

I do no own Transformers, Hasbro and those other companies do!

--------------------

Of course it wasn't going to be easy. It was **never** that easy. Although it might have been nice if it wasn't going to be this hard.

Blurr was able to identify Shockwave instantly and it wasn't because he was the Head of the Intelligence division. It was because this 'Con was Megatron's replacement and, in a sense, he was worse than Megatron.

Shockwave's cruelty was caused by logic, while Megatron's was shrouded in emotion. The difference led to far more Autobot deaths.

Staring into that single, unwavering crimson optic sparked a trickle of fear in Blurr's processor. _'Why is he here?' _he wondered._ 'And how does he know about this planet? Are there more Decepticons here?' _It was then that he remembered Red Alert's warning. The Head of Security hadn't promised Blurr's arrival would go unseen. He'd only promised that he would try, and he'd obviously failed.

"Why are you here?!" Jetfire snarled suddenly. The Aerial bot looked poised for a fight. His hands were clenched tightly at his sides. His left arm was twitching in segments, making it obvious that he was controlling his urge to reveal his arm cannon.

"Don't even bother," Shockwave replied, flicking his hand toward the freshly dug up snow. "We all came here for the same reason, so don't try to play dumb." The cold monotone voice held only a touch of annoyance.

"How-did-you-get-past-our-sensors?" Blurr asked quickly. Jetfire let out a low growl as he spoke, obviously not happy with Shockwave's response.

"That is not important at this time, is it?" Shockwave relied.

"You little bastard." Jetfire suddenly growled. "If you touched Optimus, I swear I'll-"

"Your leader is none of my concern." Shockwave interrupted him. "As of now, my only priority is our fallen leader. As I'm sure securing your leader is your only order." When the Autobots remained silent for several moments, he continued. "As I thought, your pathetic council doesn't have the courage to order Megatron's destruction."

"I don't need an order to destroy what's left of him!" Jetfire snapped.

Blurr noted that it was getting dangerous. Jetfire was usually able to hold his temper in a situation, but with Optimus's confirmed death and Shockwave's taunting, it was causing him to lose it. Soon, it could turn worse for them.

"No you don't." Shockwave agreed. "But the question is: Could you get through me to do it?" One of his arms swept to the side, indicating the dug up snow.

Blurr focused on the spot and discovered that it was where the signal was coming from. Somewhere under that snow lay the two leaders. He hoped. With Optimus's spark gone, the signal was more likely coming from Megatron's body. Technically, Optimus could be anywhere,

Blurr felt a hand on his foot and looked down. Dena stood there, eyes on Shockwave, a fierce look spread over her face. She had her other hand resting on the pouch that held her small gun, That told him everything he needed to know. She intended to fight, but he didn't intend to let her.

Reaching down, Blurr scooped the female into his hand and lifted her before she had much of a chance to struggle. Of course, when she realized what was going on, she tried to sit up and jump out of his grip. Blurr only closed his fingers over her.

"What are you doing?!" she hissed at him, trying unsuccessfully to pull his fingers open.

"You-aren't-going-to-fight-him." Blurr replied, his voice low. As it was Shockwave was already watching them, which was always creepy. One red optic staring at you emotionlessly wasn't exactly comforting.

"Why not?!" she asked him.

Blurr made no reply, only set her down on a rock in the side of the mountain. From it, there was no clear way to climb down and it was too high to jump safely. She was stuck, or at least he hoped she was. "Just-stay." he instructed her. A glance at Gabriel showed him that the other human wouldn't be any trouble. The black-haired male stood just behind Jetfire's leg, mostly out of Shockwave's view.

"Don't tempt me." Jetfire said in answer to Shockwave's challenge. The Aerial Bot's arm began to shift and change at that, the cannon powering up before it was even fully formed.

Shockwave merely gave a nonchalant wave of his hand as if there was utterly no threat to him at all at that time. Then he made the mistake of turning and moving to the half-dug up hole.

Jetfire let off a blast from his cannon before Blurr had any chance to stop him and for a second, he almost thought that the shot might actually cripple the Decepticon.

Jetfire was a decent shot, not the best, but he could hit a nonmoving target from 50 yards away with deadly accuracy. In this case, Shockwave was that target.

Blurr watched, his optics following the shot, time seeming to slow as it sped by. Shockwave's single optic followed it as well, at first, his body not moving from it. Than, at what seemed the last possible moment, he jerked to the side. The cannon fire embedded itself into the rock where Shockwave's chest-plate had previously been.

"Slag it." Jetfire cursed quietly, obviously hoping he had hit the 'Con.

But it was far from over.

Shockwave, now dusted with snow from the initial shot, retaliated. His own guns, which Blurr recognized as rearranged jet engines mounted on his arms, began to power on. Just as quickly, shots were fired at both 'bots.

Blurr reacted before he realized what was happening, his natural speed and reflexes clearing him from the path of danger.

Jetfire, on the other hand, performed a similar maneuver, but with far less grace. The Aerial Bot ended up jumping out of the way and landing with his face in the snow.

Shockwave, using the advantage of his distance and twin guns to continue his assault and fire off round after round at the momentarily confused Autobots.

Blurr took only a moment to check on Jetfire and Gabriel's status. The human had run for cover, thankfully knowing he would only be in the way. Jetfire had somehow managed to stand up in an instant, but was having difficulty dodging with his big, bulky body. Already there was a scorch mark on his left wing from where the cannon fire had skimmed the metal surface.

Blurr took the opportunity now to flip the wheels on his ankles down so that he stood raised slightly on them, his feet now resembling roller skates. Angling himself forward, he shot off in his wheels so fast toward Shockwave that the Decepticon had almost no time at all to react. Pushing off of his feet, the small intel bot was airborne.

As it was, Shockwave was more than three times as tall as Blurr, but with the extra speed, he managed to get to the needed height.

The blue Autobot slammed into Shockwave's chest. The force made the 'Con stagger back half a step. That wasn't Blurr's plan though. His arm shifting into a cannon, weak as it was since he was built for speed rather than front-line battle, he pointed it directly at Shockwave's chest. He planned to blast the 'Con's spark clear out of his chest.

As fast as he was, he never got the chance. Shockwave easily overpowered him, throwing him towards the side of the mountain. Blurr took the shot anyway, missing his spark by a long shot. The small blast instead hit Shockwave in the shoulder just as Blurr made contact with the cliff-face.

Ignoring the pain of the new dents and scratches littering his aft, he pushed off of his crash site instantaneously, hoping to at least distract Shockwave long enough for Jetfire to get a good shot in.

Unfortunately, the shot had caused only minimal damage and Shockwave batted off the blue bot just as easily as the first time.

"DAMNIT BLURR!" Dena screamed from the area behind him. A few gunshots followed after, the bullets bouncing off of Shockwave's armor with several soft pings.

Blurr might have laughed if not for the pain in his back, the severity of the situation, and the fact that it actually seemed to be _**working**_. While the bullets weren't damaging Shockwave, they seemed to be distracting him momentarily.

In the next few moments, Jetfire managed to rush forward and slam into the distracted Decepticon leader. Now, the Aerial Bot was able to knock him over, as Jetfire was several feet taller and a little wider than the 'Con, unlike Blurr.

Shockwave slammed into the rock-face with an audible crunch of metal. For several moments they stayed like that, Jetfire easily keeping the 'Con pinned with his superior strength. The problem was: Shockwave wasn't a leader for his strength. It had always been his intellect.

A blast rang out over the makeshift battle field as Blurr watched Jetfire collapse off of Shockwave. The Aerial Bot hit the snow, sliding several feet downhill and leaving a small trail of burnt metal parts in his wake.

Jetfire's following scream was more due to outrage, rather than pain.

"THAT WAS MY SLAGGING _**LEG**_ YOU GLITCH!" Jetfire screeched at the Decepticon.

Blurr should have felt relief that it was only Jetfire's leg that had been damaged. If Shockwave's cannon had been pinned against his chest, rather than his side, it would be more than the Autobot's lower leg that was shattered to the frame.

Shockwave made no reply to Jetfire's angered shout. Instead, his cannon started to power up again.

Both Blurr and Jetfire reacted at the same time. Three Autobot cannons were quickly powered on and pointed at the 'Con.

"I suggest you power down your weapons. "Shockwave suddenly ordered, his own weapon swinging around to point to the ground next to him.

Jetfire let out a snort of disbelief. Blurr almost did the same until he actually **looked**. Shockwave wasn't just pointing at snow.

During the two larger bot's struggle, they much have shaken some rocks loose. Now, where there was once only dug up snow, there was now a hole. A rather large hole.

Visible only to Blurr and Shockwave at this angle, there was a blue piece of metal showing through the hole from the cavern. A leg. A blue leg.

Blurr immediately powered down his weapon and let it shift back into his arm. "Jetfire-do-what-he-says." Blurr ordered, his eyes trained on the blue piece of mech.

"Are your circuits on the fritz?!" Jetfire snapped at him. "Why in the name of the All Spark would I do that?!"

"DO-IT!"

Jetfire looked startled by the bot's furious response. A moment more and he uncertainly obeyed, powering down his cannons and sitting up finally from the place he'd fallen.

"Now that we can agree to be civilized again..." Shockwave quipped, ignoring the glare that Jetfire shot him. "I suggest a temporary truce."

"On-what-terms?" Blurr asked quickly while Jetfire gaped behind him.

"Fighting here could lead to the destruction of both leaders." Shockwave stated. "The terms are simple. We refrain from slagging each other at this location. A neutral zone if you will."

"As-the-highest-ranked-Autobot-present-I-accept-your-terms." Blurr replied before Jetfire could argue. With a neutral zone they could accomplish their orders of retrieving Optimus's body safely.

"He's not going to keep his word!" Jetfire argued.

"What reason do I have for going back on a truce that I benefit from?" Shockwave replied, fixing his eye on the bot.

"Why don't you tell me?!" Jetfire snapped back.

"Insolent little Autobot..." Shockwave grumbled to himself, obviously holding back the urge to smack his face into his hand. "As you may know, but obviously fail to acknowledge, the Decepticon forces have been missing their rightful leader for 500 solar cycles. Just as long as you have been without Prime. Seeing as my Lord Megatron happens to be resting on this site, possibly in line with enemy cannon fire, the only logical thing to do is call a truce. Can you wrap your processor around that or should I further downgrade it for your outdated programming?" he sneered.

"Fragging Decepticon." Jetfire shot back quietly.

"Oh be quiet, he's right you know."

Blurr snapped his optics on the source of the female voice. Dena was jogging over toward Jetfire, though there was a slight limp to her step.

"Dena-how-did-you-get-down?!"

"I slid." she replied simply, shooting him a half glare, probably for putting her there in the first place.

"You should probably stop moving so we can grab a first aid kit." Gabriel added, coming out of his hiding place and eyeing Jetfire and Dena in worry.

Blurr took a closer look at Dena's leg and discovered what he meant. The backs of the girl's legs were ripped and shredded from the jagged rocks. In most areas, only the upper layers of the pants were ripped, but in a few places, her skin could be seen. On her right leg, the one she was limping on, there was a slash on her calf that was leaking a red liquid. "Your-bleeding!" Blurr exclaimed, dumbfounded.

"I'm fine, it's just a shallow cut." she dismissed, making her way down to Jetfire's injured leg. "Can you still move the cylinders right here?" she asked the Aerial Bot, pointing to one of the few remaining mechanisms on the destroyed leg.

Jetfire eyed her uncertainly, but wiggled the injured leg a bit. "I think my ankle is disconnected."

Blurr watched as Dena nodded and started fiddling with the frayed wires on the Autobot's leg. "What-are-you-doing?" he asked her.

"I told you I'm an airplane technician." she reminded him. "I might be able to get his leg at least partially functional again." She began touching wires together, occasionally making them spark. "Tell me if you feel anything."

Blurr turned his optics to Shockwave again after seeing Jetfire nod in response. The Decepticon hadn't moved at all, he was just staring at them with that one red optic. What was he doing?

"I would think that if I entered the cavern before you, it might cause... Tensions, shall we say?" The 'Con said, noticing the look that Blurr gave him.

"SLAG! That hurt!"

All optics and eyes turned on the Aerial Autobot.

"Well, I found the wire connecting to the sensors in his legs." Dena noted, disconnecting the two wires, allowing Jetfire to cease his string of now Cybertronian curses.

"Doesn't he need those for balance then?" Gabriel asked.

"Not worth it!" Jetfire grunted, pressing his fingers tenderly over his leg where the damage began.

"All we really need is to get the joints in his ankle to stiffen so he can at least stand." Dena clarified, looking down at a bundle of wires in her hand. "Wait! That's it!" she cried suddenly, snapping her fingers.

Jetfire gave her a wary look as she limped toward what was left of his foot before shoving her arms into the frame.

"There should be a way to lock the joint manually." She explained. "I may not know how you guys function, but a lock should be necessary, even on you."

Blurr moved closer, surprised at how fast the young human was adapting to Jetfire's system's and although she wasn't nearly as good as Ratchet, she certainly seemed to have his bedside manner.

About ten minutes later, things had been mostly sorted out. Jetfire's ankle joint had been locked, allowing him to stand and limp, though it caused him quite a bit of pain. Dena had allowed the gash in her leg to be bandaged as well and although she claimed it had been shallow, Gabriel knew it would need several stitches when they got back to civilization. Blurr had stayed calm and waited for them, helping whenever he could. As for Shockwave, the 'Con had mostly stood eerily still and watched them.

"Can we get on with it now? I'm tired of seeing him watch us like that." Jetfire grumbled to Blurr.

The Intel bot looked at Shockwave, approaching him at a slow pace, a normal speed for most bots. "Who-goes-first?"

"By this situation... You, then me, then the other Autobot." Shockwave stated.

Jetfire looked like he was about to protest, but Blurr cut him off. "Sound-fair-enough."

Gabriel understood Jetfire's mistrust, but he agreed with Blurr. It seemed unlikely that the large 'Con would betray them. As he'd stated before, it wasn't in his best interest. Shockwave, by allowing Blurr to go first, also seemed to understand the difference in this situation between trust and self-interest.

"Fine." Jetfire grumbled, although no one seemed to notice.

Blurr made his way over to the cavern entrance and peered inside. "I-see-them!" he announced before slipping inside.

Shockwave followed shortly after, ducking his head to fit through the fairly large opening.

"Better not try anything..." Jetfire grumbled, limping off after the 'Con. At the cavern entrance, her paused and glanced back at the two humans just standing there. "Well come on." he grunted. "You both should probably come see this."

Gabriel gave a short nod before moving over to help Dena limp over to the opening. The tall girl merely waved him off and continued off on her own.

When Jetfire ducked his head to clear the cavern entrance, Gabriel walked around his leg to peer inside. The sight that met his gaze froze him at the entrance.

Shockwave stood at his full height over a large silver mech, the cavern itself being taller than the entrance because of the ice and snow around the crater.

The silver mech, whom he assumed was Megatron, lay on his side in a dented heap, covered in rocky debris. The only real damage he seemed to have were the dents and scrapes from his crash. It was only when Shockwave bent down and turned the leader's head, did he notice the missing optic. The area where it had been ripped out contained energy dead, frayed wires. The other optic remained completely blank.

It was really the other mech though, that left him speechless.

Already, Blurr knelt by his leader's torso, his own optics resting on the empty hole in his chest.

The once proud leader now almost resembled a child's toy. His mangled limbs were strewn haphazardly out from his body. One arm looked like it was only connected by a single rubber tube. His face was viciously dented, his jaw hanging slack to one side and his optics staring blankly into nothingness. To Gabriel's untrained eyes, the blue and red Autobot looked unfixable, even if he'd still had a spark.

"Do you still have the spark chamber?" Dena suddenly asked Blurr.

"Yes-but-its-not-like-putting-it-back-in-will-do-anything." The blue bot said quietly.

"Just put it back in." she commanded him in gentle tone.

"It's not going to bring him back."Jetfire growled at her.

"I know that." Dena said, not looking at the Aerial Bot. "But, I don't like this. A proud warrior shouldn't be without something this important."

Bot Autobots seemed to still at this, understanding her words.

Blurr opened a compartment in his shoulder, letting a round black object roll out and into his palm. Gabriel recognized it as the Spark Chamber.

"I want to reattach it as best as I can." she added.

Blurr nodded slightly and placed the chamber back in his leader's empty chest, rearranging it to fit. Then he gently scooped Dena up and set her where she could work on him.

Gabriel watched her for several moments, but seeing as none of the wires that she was twining together made sense to him, he turned his eyes on Jetfire instead.

"I'm sorry."

"None of this is your fault Gabriel. It all happened long before you were created." The Autobot said.

"I'm sorry that it happened." Gabriel sighed. Jetfire looked down at him, his face shifting to one of grief.

"Thank you..."

"I think that's the most I can do." Dena sighed after a minute, at the exact moment that Gabriel was pushed forward and into the ground.

Something had _**shoved**_ him. "What was th-?" he started to say. Then his backpack started moving, trying to push forward again.

"The Matrix!" Gabriel cursed to himself, sitting up and pulling his backpack off of his shoulders.

At the same moment, the zipper was ripped open and the Matrix flew out, skidding across the rocky ground toward Optimus's corpse.

"What are you doing?!" Jetfire hissed, staring in horror.

Gabriel managed to snag the now glowing object and trap it under his chest, even as it continued to try to pull away from him. "It's not me!" Gabriel objected. "It's doing it on it's own!"

"The-Matrix!" Blurr exclaimed in awe, the blue bot now taking in the scene.

"What is it?!" Dena chimed in.

Gabriel did his best to ignore all of the exclamations as he was tugged about by the strange artifact. After several moments though, the jerking motions seemed to calm down. It was then that something hit him like a brick. Figuratively. A thought that seemed so obvious, but yet he didn't really understand it himself. Something just seemed to tell him what to do.

"Jetfire, pick me up."

"What? Why?" the 'Bot asked surprised by the sudden command.

"Just trust me." Gabriel said, shifting the still Matrix in his arms. With a bit of confused reluctance, Jetfire complied, putting his fingers out to grab him. Gabriel slid onto the open fingers and signaled for him to be moved toward where Dena sat on Optimus's chest.

"The Matrix belongs to him, even after death." Jetfire said quietly, seeming to catch on.

Gabriel only nodded in agreement as he dropped down next to Dena. The girl only moved over to give him more room as he crouched over Optimus's damaged chest.

As disfigured as the area was, Gabriel could identify where the Matrix of Leadership fit into his chest, just over his spark. It was in that chamber that he set the brightly glowing object.

In the moments of silence that followed, Dena patted Gabriel on the shoulder, the two Autobots around them shifted, and the Matrix's bright glow faded to a soft one.

"It's over." Jetfire said softly.

Without any warning, Optimus's chest snapped closed, nearly severing Gabriel's hands off as the jagged chest plates flew across the hole. Luckily, Gabriel had reacted automatically, saving his hands.

"Sweet Primus!" Jetfire muttered to himself, optics locked on the scene. Blurr could only stand there, speechless.

It wasn't even the chest plates closing on their own that was shocking!

Optimus's body was **repairing** itself.

Wires twined together under plating, joints were pulled back into their sockets, all glowing the same soft blue that the Matrix normally emitted.

It wasn't really repairing him, but it was making him operable it seemed. Much of his body still seemed to be only held together by a wire or a damaged bolt, but the fallen leader's body was back!

"Jetfire-look!" Blurr exclaimed suddenly.

All heads turned toward the indicated area hurriedly.

Two flickering, blue optics stared back at them.

A lone harrier jet shot through the frigid air, startling a Tibetan monk on the valley floor below.

Starscream honed his sensors on the spot in which five signals had now converged. It was in that spot, he was sure, Megatron lay and a confrontation was unfolding.

It would all end here.

----------------------

Please don't kill me.

Seriously, I know this is corny and probably expected, but what can I say?

I follow the traditional Transformers laws!

And what's the number one law?

Optimus Prime never stays dead.

Come on people. If you didn't see this coming... Well... I suggest re-watching all the movies.

Reading over this, I notice that Gabriel almost seems like a coward.

To clarify, he's not brave, but he's not a coward, he's just smart.

Dena's courageous and a bit stupid.

Just needed to put that out there~

I also hope this didn't sound too rushed at the end.

Thanks for reading!

Reviews are always loved!


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